


Oh, Red

by strawberrylemonade1225



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Developing Friendships, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, Other stuff too, uh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrylemonade1225/pseuds/strawberrylemonade1225
Summary: Michael, however, Jake knew nothing about, really. The kid was so quiet, and he always had those headphones on, yet he was so lively and talkative. The contrast was drastic and it intrigues Jake, making him want to know more about him.





	1. Cherry

**Author's Note:**

> hi hey what's up i wrote one (1) pins and patches fic and well  
> aha

After a couple of seconds, Jake opens his mouth, tongue out proudly. He takes the cherry stem off of it, holding it up and showing it off to the table. Rich nods, clapping his hands lightly.

“Respect, Dillinger,” he tells him, and Jake grins, setting down the knot on his Styrofoam tray. Absentmindedly breaking off small pieces, he speaks.

“I love cherries so much, only made sense that I learned to do this,” he says, scanning the table once again. His eyes linger at the end of the table, where Michael's head is on the table top, arms around it. Jeremy's hand rests on his back, yet he isn't saying anything to him, turned to talk to Christine. Jake wonders what's up with Michael, wanting to ask about it, and going to do so when-

“I heard that you're a great kisser if you can tie a knot in a cherry stem with your mouth,” Chloe mentions, leaning forward a little. Her chin rests on her folded hands, eyes a little narrowed.

“Guess the myth is true,” Jake fires back, forgetting about the Michael situation. There's a small silent staring contest between the two of them for a few seconds before Brooke captures Chloe’s attention once again, lowering the tension. Jake uses the lull in the conversation to stand, walking on shaky legs to throw out his tray.

As he dumps the napkins and cherry stems into the trash, he can't help feeling slightly off. The feeling only intensifies when he sits down at the table again, talking to Rich (read: thumb wrestling), and continuously getting distracted as his eyes slide over to the left of himself.

***

It's kinda weird, actually. Jake doesn't know how the group formed completely, but all he knows is that one day, Christine and Jeremy sat at his table, Rich clapping Jeremy on the back, and Michael sitting with them, next to Jeremy and with his headphones on and hood up. Next was Brooke, Chloe, and Jenna, as he expected, and the group just… formed.

It started a little awkward, nervousness and capped bitterness coming from Michael and Jeremy, but they soon got over it, falling into a routine. By this time (near the end of the year), it was like they had always been a group.

Well… except for Michael. Michael was reserved and he kept to himself. Jake saw how Michael really was, though, seeing his interactions with Jeremy when they were alone, peering around the corner on his way to one club or another. This Michael wasn't… the one he had observed, and it was strange. It left Jake's stomach in knots.

Weird, right?

It's not like Jake was friends with Michael or Jeremy. Maybe Christine, but probably not.

He didn't even really want to be their friends, he means, why would he? He talked to Jeremy just a few times (maybe one dance battle at a party), and sure, they might've been friends then, but not anymore.

Michael, however, Jake knew nothing about, really. The kid was so quiet, and he always had those headphones on, yet he was so lively and talkative. The contrast was drastic and it intrigues Jake, making him want to know more about him, but not in a, like-

...Anyway, after yet another lunch of a silent Michael, and a vibe of bitterness, Jake decided to do something.

***

His house tends to be quiet.

Ever since his parents left, his uncle took him in. His uncle, however kind he was, was nearly never home. It left the house quiet and always empty feeling.

It was like living alone, just… more lonely than alone.

It wouldn't be so bad if Jake had a take-home hobby. A few months ago, he'd go outside, kick around a ball, garden, do something, but… it still hurt too much to stand for that long, let alone run. He had to constantly support himself on the walls, for Christ's sake.

He usually kept the lights on, the television playing something in the background, music playing. Something to make the house feel a little more full. It worked for the most part, and Jake grew a habit of talking just to talk.

On the bright side, he began broadening his horizons and trying out new hobbies and things to do.

Sewing, cooking, cleaning, whatever was good whatever him. He found himself really enjoying sewing though, even though he currently sucked at it, but he'd be damned if he didn't persevere and become better.

This night was like many others. Television playing some drama, radio playing one of his parents' albums, and desk light shining. He sat at his desk, legs elevated by another chair, and shaky hands handling the delicate needle. Weaving white thread into red fabric, he sticks his tongue out the corner of his mouth as he focuses, following the sharpie guideline he has made for himself.

Cutting off the string and knotting it, he looks around his room before he finds a stuffed sheep thrown in the corner.

“Uh… sorry,” he quietly apologizes before cutting along the seam and removing the stuffing, putting it into his own creation, he drops the sheep back onto the floor, re-threading his needle and closing off the stitching of his own stuffed animal.

He holds it out and examines it with a smile. His smile wobbles a little when he sees it's… abnormal shape, but it's a stuffed bear, nonetheless.

Uncapping a marker, he holds the cap between his teeth as he scribbles on it. First, he writes “Jake D.” on the back of the right leg, then writing “cherry bomb!” across the chest. He draws a winking and grinning face on the bear.

Jake stood up from the desk, stretching and dropping the bear into his bookbag, turning off his light and CD player, lowering the volume of the television before dropping into his bed, curling around the blanket and falling asleep to the sound of Jack betraying Grace again on the tv ( _Goddammit_ Jack).

***

Okay, so, maybe he could've approached the situation better.

Here he was now, a certain Michael Mell with wide eyes and heavy breathing, holding his hands up and gripping onto his headphones.

Maybe walking up and lifting up one side of the headphones and saying “guess who” into his ear was not the… best of ideas.

“I'm… I'm sorry, dude,” Jake says, swallowing nothing. Michael begins calming down, pushing up his glasses and glancing away. “I, uh… didn't think that would mess you up like this.”

“I'm… _very_ jumpy,” Michael says, a small laugh tagging onto the end of his words. His fists clench at his book bag straps. The whitening of his knuckles contrast the black straps, Jake notices. “Um, so-”

“Oh! Right!” Jake exclaims, clapping his hands. He slings his backpack over his shoulder, digging in it until he reaches the… stuffed bear he made, if it can even be called a bear. More like a blob.

Nonetheless, he zips up his back and holds the bear out the Michael, who just stares at it with wide eyes.

“Uh.” Jake shakes his hand and Michael gets the idea, slowly taking it and holding it to his chest in the same scared fashion as before. He then looks up at Jake. “Wh… What's this?”

Jake grins, hooking his thumbs underneath his backpack straps. “Your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb.”

The corner of Michael's mouth turns up into the barest hint of a smile at that. He lowers his hands down, the smiling falling too, unfortunately, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“You sewed me a bear?”

“Not at first,” Jake replies, looking at the bear. That much is true; he originally meant to just throw it on his bed or something. “I noticed how down you look all the time, though, and I figured this might help, you know?”

“You… noticed that?” Michael asks in a quiet voice and Jake tilts his head a little, letting out a laugh.

“I mean, of course I did. You sit at my table, how could I not?”

Michael's face falls in the slightest before he covers over it, stuffing the bear into his hoodie pocket. He smiles and nods at Jake again before pulling on his headphones and his hood, turning on his heel and walking off. Jake's own grin drops then, watching him walk off, the bitter vibe still existent.

Maybe more existent than before.

***

The next week, Jake opens his locker and watches as a scrap of paper flutters out and lands near his feet.

Squatting down, he picks it up and reads over it.

“Thanks.” is all that's written on it. The handwriting is slanted and there's a small M in the bottom corner. Jake's not a genius, but he can figure out who the note was from.

He tucks it in his jacket pocket, fingers catching on one of the pins over his heart. A smile lights up his face as his blunt nails drag over the surface of the pin, walking to the cafeteria and taking his seat at the lunch table first.

Michael's the next to come, headphones on, phone in hand. He sat down in his respective seat, looking up. Jake meets his eyes and Michael looks back down, tapping away on the screen.

 _It's a development_ , Jake thinks, pulling out his lunch (read: another baggie of cherries).

The table fills out soon, and as Jake pops his, what, tenth cherry into his mouth, he absentmindedly looks in Michael's direction. He doesn't catch his eyes on him, but he sees Michael's small smile directed at his phone and hears the barest drift of “Cherry Bomb” blasting through his headphones.

Jake makes a decision then, one that he never thought he'd make.

It's not like he wanted to be his friend, he's truly just curious, but-

Spitting out the cherry pit, Jake decided to befriend and figure out Michael Mell.


	2. Scrapes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plan "Befriend Michael" isn't going as well as he had hoped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternatively titled: me trying to figure out Jake's character

The sound of a chain being lowered on the marble countertop of the kitchen proved to distract Jake for a long period of time. His eyes locked on the way the chain seemed to flow like a liquid, despite being solid, the light sound satisfying him in a way.

“Earth to Jake,” came a voice, and Jake looks up, winding the chain between his fingers. Jenna stands there, a hand on her hip and her eyebrow raised. “Any particular reason you're staring at the countertop like you're trying to get in its pants?”

“Hardy har,” Jake replies, standing up straight. Thinking about it, he figures that it was weird of him to be staring so intently, but he acts like it was something everyone did. “I was just gonna get a drink.”

“Well, there's lemonade, water, and soda in the fridge.” She walks behind him, opening said fridge and grabbing a can of Coke. She cracks it open and looks at him again. “Feel free to join us outside when you're done doing whatever it is that you're doing.”

Speaking of outside, Jake heard a splash and a yell. Jenna walks out of the kitchen and Jake is soon to follow, his own can gripped in his hand. He came out just in time to see Rich cannonball into the pool, snagging the edge of a floaty and flipping Brooke into the water. The two of them came to the surface and Brooke dunked him again, laughing hard.

It was late May, and the heat was starting to kick up for summer. They were all hanging out at Jenna’s house because she's the only one who had a pool. It had taken a lot of convincing for her to actually invite them, though.

(“I'll tell you embarrassing stories about Chloe,” Brooke offered, and Chloe flushed red, whipping around to look at her. Jenna grinned wickedly and reached across the table to shake Brooke’s hand.

“Deal.”)

Cracking the lid, Jake takes a drink of soda, eyes roving across the pool and yard. Chloe is on a floaty with Brooke, Christine is preparing to jump into the pool, Rich cheering her on. Jenna is lounging on the chair beside himself, eyes closed. Michael and Jeremy sit on the edge of the pool at the deep end, kicking their legs in the water.

Jake put down the can and began walking in that direction. As he did, though, Jeremy stood and hopped into the pool, swimming his way over to the others. Not to Jake's surprise, Michael stayed in his spot. He soon sat down beside him, legs in the water as well. He leaned back on his hands, palms warning further on the hot concrete.

He looks over to see Michael turning to look at him. His face is blank, eyes a little wide, but Jake figures that his glasses are just making them seem that way.

“‘Sup?” Jake asks, and Michael turns away then. Jake does the same, watching the ripples in the otherwise calm water with every small kick of his legs.

“Nothing much, uh… you?” Michael finally replies. Jake hums, shrugging a shoulder.

“‘Bout to keep swimming soon.” Jake looks over at him again. Michael's still looking down, hands twisting in the hem of his shirt. “What about you? Not much of a swimmer, huh?”

“Not really, no.” Jake worries that Michael's gonna tear his shirt at this rate.

“I can respect that. You know, I-” while speaking, Jake had lifted one of his hands off the group, other supporting him entirely. He takes that now free hand and claps Michael on the back in what he thinks is a friendly gesture.

Michael, however, gasps, hands flying from his shirt to the ground, pushing himself back from the ledge. Jake cringes as he sees the way the back of his legs drag across the ground, hands doing the same. Michael's looking at him with even bigger eyes, chest rising and falling.

It seems silent. Painfully silent, and Jake forces himself out of his own headspace to see their friends in a splash fight, completely oblivious to the miniature drama occurring not too far away.

Michael shakes his head, standing up. He holds his arms up to his chest, a habit Jake has noticed over these few days of trying to befriend him.

“I'm- I- uh-” Michael stops, seemingly trying to calm himself down “- I'm getting a drink.”

And with that, he walks away, and Jake catches the red scratches on the back of his calves, and for once, red isn't his favorite color.

***

Making Michael his friend proves to be a lot harder than he thought it would be.

Gifts? Not good. Michael becomes suspicious and he refuses them to hell and back.

Inviting him out places? Michael never even lets Jake finish his request, turning his face to the ground and saying that he's busy.

Even just talking to him? The kid is always looking away, giving short answers. Then, after a few seconds of quiet, Michael looks at him out of the corner of his eyes and pulls on his headphones. Headphones mean game over.

Unfortunately, Jake got a lot of game overs. Fortunately, he had infinite lives.

During the first week of June, Jake stood after school for the drama club. There weren't supposed to be any more meetings, but Christine had insisted that they stayed after to sharpen their skills so that they didn't slip away over the summer.

Only Jeremy (surprising) and Jake had agreed.

After a good ten minutes of watching Jeremy and Christine be sickly sweet to one another with little to no actual practice, Jake got sick of it.

“Jer, dude, c’mere,” Jake calls. Jeremy looks over at him after jumping from his loud voice, untangling his hand from Christine's to walk over to him. Jake stands, stretching his arms over his head. “Can I ask you a question?”

“...Depends,” Jeremy says, standing straight up. Jake snorts, grinning

“Confidence is a good look for you bro.” Jeremy flushes red and Jake laughs a little bit. “Anyway, for no specific reason, I wanted to know if your headphones friend happened to stay after today.”

“You mean Michael,” Jeremy said with a flat voice. There was a bit of a pause in his speech, and Jake urged him on with a “give me” motion with his hands. “He's in art club. They weren't staying after today, but he's supposed to give me a ride, so he's probably in the art room… why?”

“No reason.” Jake swings his bag over his shoulder, grin widening. “Catch you lovebirds later. And Jeremy?”

“...Yeah?”

“Don't get any stains on the stage, if you know what I mean.”

Jake leaves the room cackling after he's hit by a flying empty water bottle from Christine and being shown a blood red face from Jeremy.

***

Light illuminates Michael's face in the otherwise dark room. Jake stands in the open doorway of the art room, feeling reluctant to walk inside. He doesn't even know what it is that has him frozen; he's just standing there, staring at Michael.

Michael's sitting in a chair facing a window, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand. He's staring at something out the window, something that Jake can't see. Honestly, it's amazing that Michael hasn't noticed Jake yet; it's probably because he couldn't hear him due to the godforsaken headphones.

The light from the sun shined on him, casting a shadow behind him. His glasses glint every time he moves his head in the slightest, and Jake doesn't know why the sight has him frozen still. He's so utterly confused in this moment, and he doesn't know what to do about it.

Michael's glasses glint again and Jake is met with Michael's eyes locked on his own. There they are, going wide yet again.

He lifts his hands to pull down the headphones, and Jake can finally unroot his feet from their position, taking a few steps forward.

“...How's it hangin’?” Michael asks, voice quiet. His eyes are shifting between the two of Jake's. Putting on an easy-going smile, he pulls up a chair beside Michael and sits on it backward.

“I'm pretty good, what about yourself?” Jake looks out the window then, trying to find what Michael was staring at. His eyes catch on a small bit of graffiti on the opposing wall (of course someone graffitied on the school and it's still there.) It was a burst of bright colors all outlined with a black border to make a colorful blob.

“I'm fine.” One of Michael's legs lift off the ground to prop up on the seat, chin leaning on his knee now. Jake can hear a bit if faint music from his headphones.

“Whatcha listening to?” Michael liked music, that much Jake knew. Maybe he could befriend Michael through a love for music since everything else seemed to be failing.

It proved to be working when Michael brightened up in the slightest. “It's uh, it's called ‘The Silence in Your Head’. It's by The String Cheese Incident, which is a weird name, but I've heard weirder.”

“What type of music do you typically listen to?” Jake told himself he didn't care, he means, he really didn't. He just wanted to know what Michael's deal was.

“Anything and everything, really.” Michael looks over at him, a smile on his face. It's- Jake doesn't care. “Just before this I had a song on that sounded like club music, and before that was frickin’ Taylor Swift.”

Jake let out a laugh. “Taylor Swift?”

“For some reason, I really like ‘Gorgeous’,” Michael admits, tilting his head and putting on an exaggerated thoughtful expression. Jake laughs harder, and when he finally sobers down, he sees that Michael is looking out the window again, face blank.

What happened to the breakthrough he had made?

“Why are you here?” Michael questions, voice back to quiet. Jake hums.

“Why would I not want to hang out with my friends?” He throws back, and Michael scoffs.

“We're not friends, Jake.”

“I know. But we can be-”

“In what alternate universe are you living in that Michael Mell and Jake Dillinger can be friends?” Michael suddenly cuts him off with, looking at him again. His shoulders are tense, and his face is… intense, for lack of a better word. Michael's jaw drops open though, and he curls in on himself. Now he just looks afraid.

A look Jake had seen too many times. A look Jake was usually the cause of.

Suddenly, everything makes a bit more sense.

“Michael, I didn't-”

“Just… just leave me alone, okay? Stop doing things to me, like the gifts and talking. It's all suspicious, and I really don’t want to be subjected to whatever it is that you're planning.” Michael stands, starting to pull his headphones on again. “Just cause we have the same circle of friends doesn't mean you need to act nice to me. It's scary, and I know you don't care, so why am I still talking?”

Michael pulls on the headphones and Jake stands himself, voice raised, saying, “Michael, wait!”

And he's gone. Yet again, he's gone, and Jake’s life is blinking out, another bold “GAME OVER” flashing in his face.

He blows out a breath, inserting another coin, and walking briskly out of the room, planning his next move.


	3. Backpack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake feels sick.

Jake's not gonna lie about this:

He's used to friends and _more than_ friends just falling into his lap, barely having to lift a finger.

He thinks he deserves as much, he means, he's constantly under the stress of pretty much everything. The least the world can do for him is give him some people to lean on.

For example, Rich befriends him first. Back in Sophomore year, Richard Goranski came to him offering friendship, and Jake was quick to accept.

(It was actually more like this:

“Hey, dude, me and a couple of my friends are gonna go and shoot hoops after school. Wanna join?” A boy Jake had never seen before asked. The boy's face turned into one of disgust towards the end, and Jake figured that he had realized how awkward the statement was.

A few thoughts ran through Jake's head: Who are you, why are you talking to me, and won't it be difficult with your height? “Uh…”

“There's pizza afterward,” the boy offered, eyebrows raised.

“Hell yeah!”)

Chloe was pretty much the same, as was Brooke, Jenna, anyone.

Hell, even Christine. She hadn't put up much of a fight at all.

So, of course, the one person Jake strives to become friends with is none other than Michael Mell, the kid who refuses any of Jake's attempts.

Ever since the art club incident (was it really an incident?), Michael had been making more of an effort to avoid Jake, and Jake had been making more of an effort to run into Michael.

It's honestly exhausting.

It's been about a week's time, and while his uncle would probably say something about how relationships take time or some bullshit like that, Jake is starting to become a little bit annoyed with it, but still… still he pursues this unlikely friendship.

It just makes _sense_ , you know? They're in the same friend group, they both like the color red, they both… are tall…

Admittedly, Jake knows next to nothing about Michael, but that's what friendships are for.

But hey, he does know that Michael knows the song “Cherry Bomb” and that he likes all types of music, so that gives a common interest.

Anyway, all in all, no matter how annoyed Jake is growing, he continues trying, and he has just the right trick up his sleeve for his next move.

***

_Michael,_

_I think I know now why you're so ~~susppicos~~ suspicious of my offer for friendship, and it's cause I was always a dick to you, isn't it?_

_I've never apologized for that, and you can tell that I'm not the best with social cues/situations, so I didn't even think to apologize before that day in the art room._

_Dude, my intentions are 100% pure, okay? I'm not trying to do anything or ~~hurt you~~ whatever._

_I'm better at speaking than writing, so ~~please~~ talk to me and I can explain more, alright?_

_-Jake_

Jake ran a hand through his hair, scanning over the note for the hundredth time. His desk light made the paper painfully bright white.

Trying to ease the tension he had created in his own room from admitting his mistakes, he doodles a puppy in the bottom right corner.

It doesn't help much.

***

The last week of school, everyone has to clean out their lockers. Jake takes this opportunity to hastily stuff the letter in Michael's locker and leans against the one right next to it.

(“Is your, uh, buddy, staying after today?”

“I know you know his name. And why?”

“Look, just-” Jake takes a breath “- please just tell me. It's important.”

“...Okay?” Jeremy responds, confusion in his voice, and Jake can't help the weird relief that washes over him.)

Jake's distracting himself by tapping out a rhythm on his legs when a red bag is dropped by his feet. He jolts a little and looks up to see Michael standing in front of his locker. His hands are on the lock, not moving, and his forehead presses against the locker.

“You suck at leaving people alone,” is what Michael greets him with, starting to twist in his combination.

“I don’t _want_ to leave you alone.”

“I seriously can't handle whatever you're- huh?” As he spoke, he got his locker open, cutting himself off to watch the letter flutter to the ground. Michael stared down at the letter before looking over at Jake with raised eyebrows. Jake shrugs one shoulder, nodding his head at the letter.

Michael sighs and scoops up the letter, gnawing on his bottom lip as he looked at it, unfolding the paper. Jake kept his eyes locked on Michael's face, looking for his reaction, probably reading too far into every small movement.

“Jake?” Michael starts with a small voice and Jake slides a bit closer, feeling as if he was pulled by a magnet. He hums, and his eyes are still scanning his face.

“Yeah? What is it?” Jake prompts after Michael is silent for a while. The hallway is so unbearably empty and quiet, and Jake feels so big in the room. He needs a crowd to get lost in, noise to calm him, _something_ , but no, he's stuck here with a quiet loner who wants nothing to do with him.

“I can't believe you spelled ‘suspicious’ with two p’s at first.”

“I’m sorry- wha?” Jake asks after a few seconds, Michael's response just now registering. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“I don’t know how to respond to these situations, I-” Michael held the letter close to his chest, crinkling the paper a little. He looked at Jake, a small smile curving his mouth. “Do you want to hang out sometime? You and me? We can listen to music or some shit like that. And uh… talk about this.”

“Are you for real?”

Michael nods, the paper crumpling more. The smile twitches a little, and he looks down. “I… we're still not friends but-”

“Give me a chance?” Jake asks, cutting in. By this point, he realizes that he has stepped even closer, able to touch Michael without reaching out all too far.

“Yeah… give you a chance,” Michael answers, smile widening a little. He pulls his bookbag closer, unzipping it and starting to take things out of his locker and into his bag. When Jake doesn't move, Michael looks up at him. “Uh… don't you have to-”

“Today? Can we hang out today?” Jake really needs to work on this “sounding eager” thing. It made him sound clingy and he did _not_ like it.

Michael's mouth closes, and he just looks at him before looking away and picking up speed, shoving a book into his bag. “I'm- I'm free after this.”

“Cool! Cool.” Jake takes a breath, stepping away. “Mall? Arcade? Where do you want to go?”

“The mall's good with me, I can, um, drive us?” Michael offers and Jake nods, clenching and unclenching his fist around his bookbag strap. “Nice. I'm almost done.”

After a few more seconds, Michael zips up his bag and closes his locker. He swings his bag over his shoulder, meeting Jake's eyes again before walking ahead, leading the way. Walking beside him, Jake notices Michael's hand travel upward, fingers twisting in the wire of his headphones. Subconsciously, Jake worries that he was about to pull his headphones on and that his efforts have been for nothing again.

But that's not what happens. What happens is Michael drops his hand again, shoving it into his pocket and pulling out his keys. He then turns to Jake again, speaking, and everything he says comes out like a blur of voices under water because the intense relief that hits Jake is weirder and so much more than earlier when talking to Jeremy.

This doesn't feel good; Jake thinks he might be getting sick or… something.

***

Michael chews on a fry, looking at Jake over the top of his glasses. Jake wonders why he does that, never directly facing him while looking at him; his face is always turned away or downwards, peering at him from the corner of his eyes.

 _Talk, idiot,_ Jake thinks, shaking his head. He leans his cheek into his hand and says, “You wanted to talk about the letter?”

Michael looks away from entirely then, stuffing a few fries into his mouth. He pressed his lips together after he swallows the food, the silence thick.

Jake focuses on the murmur of people around them and the squeak of sneakers as he waits for an answer.

“Why do you want to be my friend so bad?” Michael finally asks, and Jake nearly scoffs. A few answers run through his head, such as “I don’t want to be your friend that bad” or “Why don’t you want to be mine?”.

“Why wouldn't I?” is what he finally goes with. Michael snorts, looking off to the side.

“Maybe ‘cause I'm a nerdy loser. I heard enough of those kinda insults from Rich and co. in the past,” Michael answers, looking at him from the corner of his eyes again. Jake looks down at the ice in his now empty cup.

“Michael, I… I'm so sorry. I'm such an idiot, I don’t know why I ever said those things to you.”

“You are.”

“What?”

“An idiot. I'm glad you realize that.” Jake lets out a small laugh, grinning. That's definitely a change. Michael's showing some kind of confidence. “I probably deserved it though.”

“Huh? No, you didn't deserve it at all, dude.” Jake feels the beginning of anger ebbing in. He doesn't even know what he's angry at, he just knows he is. “I'm- all of us are the ones to blame for that b.s. You were just… you, and that made us mad and resentful for some reason.”

 _Where the fuck did that come from?_ Jake thinks, furrowing his eyebrows and looking down at the table. When he looks back up, Michael is looking him in the eyes, face turned fully towards him. Jake sits up, keeping the eye contact.

“I- wow. That's not what I was expecting when I said that.”

“Me neither,” Jake laughs out, trying to ease the tension. For the first time in ages, he feels jittery. He's probably just worried that Michael will say no to being friends at the end of it all.

“Is it safe to assume that you aren't planning to do anything to me?” Michael asks, eyes shifting between the two of Jake's. Jake does scoff then, wrinkling his nose.

“What would I even be planning to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know, uh… humiliate me in public, lure me into a false sense of security until I reveal some deep dark secrets and you use them against me-”

“What in the fuck?”

“I've seen _Cyberbully_. I'm not about to be caught in a catfishing situation.”

"I... what...? Well, anyway, I haven't, and I'm not gonna do anything like that,” Jake attempts to reassure him, shaking the melting ice in his cup. He tilts the ice into his mouth, crunching on it. “I promise you that.”

“...I hope you don’t break that promise,” Michael says after a few more seconds of silence. Jake feels the hope in him spike at that, and Michael gets a small smile on his face. “Still have that offer to be my friend?”

“Yeah, totally!” Jake clears his throat. “I mean, yes, I do.”

“Cool!”

“Cool.”

Jake will allow himself to admit this much: he may not care whether he was Michael's friend or not, but at least he seemed cool.

Now all he had left to do is to figure him out, which is way easier said than done.


	4. Hoodie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepovers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i <3 jake dillinger

Turns out that friend Michael is just like acquaintance Michael, except he now talks to Jake sometimes.

Sometimes.

(Honestly, though, Jake doesn't have enough time to observe the changes, really. After all, they became friends with three days of school left before summer break.)

Jake stood up from his bed, walking over to his desk and digging in the drawers until he finds a notebook. The cover reads “History Notes” and he flips it open to find nothing written on the pages. He's not all the surprised with himself.

He writes “Project Michael Mell” (placeholder and rather a shitty name) onto the cover with a sharpie and flips it open.

“Is this creepy? Does this count as creepy?” Jake wonders aloud before he shrugs, deciding to treat this like an actual school project (homework and friendship), pressing a pencil to the paper and beginning to write some of the changes.

**a. Michael → f. Michael**   
**\- Talks more**   
**\- Headphones still on**   
**\- Smiles more**   
**\- Still quiet about most things and doesn't talk much**   
**\- Action plan: become a better friend, learn more**

Jake realizes that this is… very weird, to say the least, but if this is what he has to do to make sure he makes progress and keep track of his developments, this is what he'll gladly do.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, you know?

***

**To _hi welcome to chili's:_**

**riiich: day two of summr n im alrady bored**

**Chlo: your texting makes me cry**

**Brooke♡: lik if u cri evrytim**

**riiich: broke i just realized that im in love with you.**

**JakeyD: All of you can come over to my house if you want to**   
**JakeyD: I'm the only one home right now**   
**JakeyD: And am probably gonna be home alone for a couple more days**

**riiich: lit okay omw**

**GossipGirl: “lit”**

**Chris:): You speak in text abbreviations.**

**ben &Jeremy's: Michael just woke up so I'll ask him to drive us!**   
**ben &Jeremy's: Christine, I can ask Michael to pick you up too, if you'd like?**

**Chris:): I'll walk! Jake lives close to me. Thank you though <3**

**JakeyD: It's 1 PM… why is Michael just waking up?**

**riiich: i wok up whn u txtfed cuz my fonw buzzed**

**Chlo: are u drunk**

**riiich: god i wish**

**Brooke♡: Anyway! Is everyone good to hang out? Me and Chloe are coming together.**

**ben &Jeremy's: Christine, Michael, and I are good to go!**

**GossipGirl: Jake open your door.**

**JakeyD: You're very fast**

**GossipGirl: I live Right Next To You**

**JakeyD: True**   
**JakeyD: BE THERE OR BE SQUARE IT'S GONNA BE DOPE**

***

For once, Jake is glad for the empty house. He'd never be allowed to have this many people over if his uncle was there.

“Fuck!” Rich yells from kitchen and Jake just gets up from the couch, walking over and into the kitchen. He sees a hand on the countertop, and he walks around the counters to see Rich curled into a ball, holding his foot in his hand.

“You left for _two seconds-”_

“Not my fault that your counter decided to stub my toe, son of a bitch.” Rich leans his head against the cabinets, not standing up yet. “That hurt like a mother trucker, dude.”

Jake snorted and walked over to his fridge, pulling out a soda. He walks back over to the counter and is about to say something to Rich when someone walks into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Michael greets, walking up to the counter. Jake wonders if he can see Rich or not.

“What's up? Having fun?” Jake asks and Michael chuckles.

“You sound like a mom.” He reaches up and tugs down on the bill of his snapback, which he has on backward. Rich teased him for a bit about it, but he was quickly silenced when Jenna pulled up his Facebook at lightning speed. “But yes, I am having fun.”

“You're sitting by yourself in the back,” Jake points out and Michael shrugs one shoulder, looking off to the side.

“Well, I mean, yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm not having fun.”

Jake hums and asks, “This is gonna sound abrupt, but... do you want to stay the night tonight?”

“I-” Michael looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. Jake tilts his head a little and grins. “Why?”

“Spur of the moment idea. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to be your friend.” Jake couldn't even tell by this point if he was lying or not. His mind was such a blur on everything Michael Mell related that it hurt and confused him to try to figure out, so he didn't try.

Michael smiled then, turning his face to face him head-on. Jake drummed his fingers on the countertop. “Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to, I, um, I'll drop off Jeremy and Christine and get some stuff then come back here?”

“Righteous,” Jake says and Michael seems to let out a breath, shoulders dropping. Jake hadn't even noticed how tense he was. He smiles at Jake for another few seconds before he turns, walking out of the room and pulling his headphones on over his hat.

Jake, smile still on his face, drums his fingers now on the sides of the soda can. He goes to leave the kitchen when a hand grabs his ankle. After jumping a little, he looks down to see Rich staring up at him. Putting his can on the counter, he sits down on the ground beside Rich, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Bitch,” is all Rich says, eyes wide.

“...What?”

“What was that?” Jake shrugs, smiling still. “Don't give me that shrug and smile, tell me what's up cause that sounded like some really awkward flirting.”

_“What?”_ Jake shakes his head, a small laugh leaving his mouth. “We're friends bro, I-I'm just curious ‘bout him.”

“‘Curious’?”

“I know nothing about him, well, knew, and I got curious.” Jake smiles again, looking away. “That's all it is.”

“Jake,” Rich drags out and Jake pushes himself off of the ground, grabbing his can. “Don't do some stupid shit.”

“Have I ever done anything stupid?”

Rich just gives him a look and Jake shrugs again, smiling and walking back into the living room with his soda.

***

Jake kicks some dirty laundry into his closet when he walks into his room, Michael right behind him. It was later in the day, and everyone else had gone home, and here Michael Mell was, standing in the middle of his bedroom, looking around.

“You have a picture wall?” Michael asks, and Jake presses his lips together, nodding. It's kinda embarrassing for him, but it's not like he could take down a whole wall of individual pictures for one night.

“I was in photography club once and, uh… it was nice. Photos helped me through the period of therapy, both physical and mental,” he admits, and his face burns a little when he realizes that he said all of that. He looks over to Michael to see his reaction, expecting boredom, but he's met with something else.

He's met with Michael's smile and eyes crinkling at the corners. It's… nice.

Michael walks over to the wall, looking over all the pictures before getting caught on one. “This is… of me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I, uh.” Jake comes closer as well, looking at the picture. It's of Michael, but it's taken from behind him when he has his hood up. He must have added some filter or edited it or something cause the polar bear design stands out vibrant compared to the dull colors of the background. “I liked the design and… I like taking pictures of my friends.”

Seeing the look Michael turns to give him, he continues explaining himself. “I considered you my friend long before you considered me yours.”

Michael smiles again, running his fingers along the pictures. “These all look recent. No baby pictures?”

“Hah, I wish. I had this really nerdy looking picture of Rich, and I could've totally used it as blackmail but-” he swallows and looks away “- the fire took it all. Everything... into ash.”

“Oh, I-I didn't mean to-”

“No, no, it's okay.” Michael's face still remained guilty, and Jake put on a smile, waving his hand. “Seriously, I have all those pictures on my phone.”

Michael opens his mouth to say something but then closes it again, stepping away from the wall. He drops his bag onto Jake's bed, looking at it for a second before stepping forward, repeatedly clapping the side of his fist to the palm of his hand in front of him. He puffs out his cheeks and blows out a breath, looking around the room, and when he has blown out all of the air, he meets Jake's eyes again. Jake had been standing there, in the middle of his room, the whole time, watching him. When they meet eyes again, Jake grins.

After a few moment, he breaks the silence by asking, “Want to go jam to some music or something?”

Michael's shoulders drop and he mirrors Jake's grin, nodding. “I didn't bring any CDs, though.”

“I have a speaker, a Bluetooth one. We can just connect our phones to it.” They start walking down to the living room again, and Jake looks at Michael beside him. His eyes are focused on the ground and his fingers tangle in the cord of his headphones. “So. What song will get you to loosen up a little?”

“Huh?” Michael responds, caught off guard. Jake grins again, dragging out the speaker and switching it on. He connects his phone to it and gestures towards Michael.

“I'm not an idiot, I know this whole sitch is awkward,” he explains and Michael looks away again. “What I'm asking is what song will make you stop caring so much? C'mon, I got Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, a favorite of yours, or so I've heard, Whitney Houston, uh… Train-”

“Uh, wait, go back. Whitney Houston?”

“Yeah. ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’.” Jake looks over at Michael and furrows his eyebrows at the way Michael's jaw and fists are clenched. “Uh, Mike-”

“Th-That one.”

Jake hesitates for a second before playing the song, the upbeat beginning sounding out of the speaker. He feels just as awkward as Michael might, but he throws all caution to the wind, bobbing his head along to the beat, stepping in the middle of the room and moving to the beat. Michael stays near the end of the couch, arms crossed over his stomach, entirely closed off as per usual. He seems caught in a war inside of himself, face the one of someone in pain.

Jake feels a sinking feeling in his stomach, but he swallows it all down, dancing more ridiculously and grinning wide. “C'mon, man, don’t leave me hangin'. This song's the shit!”

Michael seems to debate with himself on that one too before he gives in, arms dropping. He takes his headphones off, dropping them onto the couch. He shoves up his sleeves as well, a smile coming on his face as he comes closer, swaying to the music.

Jake does some awkward air thrust dance that makes Michael double over, hands clenching at his stomach, laugh loud. Jake does it again, just worse, and Michael laughs even harder, no sound coming out at all. Jake laughs with him, his spirits lifted at seeing Michael happy like that, and he was able to figure something out then.

He did want to be Michael's friend.

“Sing it with me!” he yells, and Michael nods, the two of them shouting along, screaming “I wanna dance with somebody” before falling apart into giggles and wide grins, Michael wiping at his eyes.

And Jake knew that this wasn't just a project anymore. He really did want to be a genuine friend to Michael Mell.

***

The party of two ends hours later, and now they are still in the living room, just laying down now.

Michael had fallen on the couch after many more songs and scream-singing, hoodie threw off to the side and hat frisbee-ed off somewhere after some joke. Jake had collapsed on the floor soon after him, jacket pillowing his head. He had moved enough to grab the remote, and now some show on adult swim was playing.

“What time is it?” Michael wheezes out, and Jake chuckles. His voice is a little rough from screaming for the last few hours. Jake turns on his phone and lets out a small gasp.

“...Three AM.”

“Wow, Jesus Christ, okay then. Guess it's late enough for this.” Jake rolls on his back to see Michael sitting up, knees drawn up, chin on his knees. His lip is being worried between his teeth. “Want to know why I chose Whitney Houston first?”

“I actually was kinda wondering that, I… you looked super serious, bro.”

“You… you know when someone's all like ‘oh geez this song reminds me of an ex’ and they avoid listening to it?”

“Some girl dumped you and that was your song?”

“...Haven't you seen the pride patch- you know what, that's irrelevant right now.” He runs a hand through his hair, turning his face to side, looking off. “I last heard that song at your Halloween party.”

“...Oh?”

“I… it made a delightful soundtrack to a panic attack.”

_“Oh?”_ Jake sat up himself then, suddenly a lot more awake. He shuffles over, arms up on the couch, cheek on his arm, peering up at Michael.

“I… wasn't supposed to come, but I had somethin' to tell Jeremy, so I hid in the bathroom. He uh… came running in, to get away from you, apparently, and ran into little ol’ me.” The bitterness is seeping back into Michael's voice, and Jake sits up straighter, scanning his face again. His jaw is squared and his eyes are watery. Oh God, this wasn't good. “We… had an argument. We both said some words, and next thing I knew, Whitney's voice was flowing through the room, my heartbeat matching the song, my face wet, and my mind blank.”

“Oh, God, Michael, I had no idea,” Jake gasps out, sliding onto the couch and sitting beside Michael. Michael has his face buried in arms now, and he has no clue what to do, so he says the first thing on his mind. “Why… why are you telling me all of this?”

“I… I don’t know… figured you deserved an explanation…” Michael's voice is broken as he speaks, and Jake’s own heart clenches a little. “Thought you should see why being my friend isn't a… good idea.”

“...What?” That catches Jake off guard entirely. The thought to drop Michael never even crossed his mind. He reaches a hand out, putting it on Michael's back. Michael looks up, looking over at him with wide, shiny eyes and a red blotchy face from crying.

“Well, I mean, I-I’m crying now and-”

“Bro, dude, no. There's no way I'm gonna stop being your friend. I care about you man.”

“You… I… what?” Now Michael sounds surprised.

“So what? You got emotional, dude. Everyone's got a lil baggage. I'm not gonna knock you for that,” Jake explains, staring intently at Michael, hoping this got through to him. Michael smiled then, lips shaky and a few more tears falling.

“...Thank you, I… thank you,” he says quietly, looking down again, and Jake is so glad he decided to befriend this kid, even though he knew nearly nothing about him.

Yet, hopefully.

***

**real friend Michael, cont.**   
**\- Told me about an incident at my party; Whitney Houston, bathroom**   
**\- Nervous about everything, anxious**   
**\- Closed off still**   
**\- Mystery**   
**\- Action plan: become closer to him, hang out more, learn more about what's up**


	5. Slushy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Click click of a camera.

The thing about photography and Jake is that he's rather passionate about it, but he doesn't get many opportunities. It's not like he can just drive off any given time he wants and snap some beautiful photos, and that really sucks, cause that totally could've been his stay-at-home hobby if it didn't require… leaving home.

Ignoring that factor, he loves taking pictures, being able to capture a whole story in one still frame, whether it's a blurry picture zoomed in on Rich’s face for his Snapchat story or a picture taken being Christine and Jeremy, focused on their linked hands. Pictures are amazing to him, concealing memories behind thin sheets and meaning the world.

So, going off of this, he takes more pictures.

He has one of Michael falling asleep in his cereal the morning after he stayed the night, a follow-up picture is when he wakes up, and you can see Michael glaring at the camera, glasses smeared with milk and a Cheerio stuck to his cheek.

He has a picture of Michael with his headphones on, eyes closed and body relaxed. He's wearing a plain black t-shirt, hoodie bundled up in his arms.

He has a picture of the two of them with one of those silly filters on. It squares their jaws dramatically and Jake is staring into the camera with a narrowed eyed gaze while Michael has his mouth open in a laugh, nose scrunched up.

He has one of Michael at his house, at the park, at the arcade, a fast food place, everywhere.

The points are: Jake likes photography, and Jake likes hanging out with Michael.

Take pictures of what you find happy was what he thought each time he pulled out his phone to snap a quick picture.

It's been a month and a half since officially befriending Michael, and his picture wall had grown a lot in size, yet Jake was not against getting more.

He wanted the entire wall covered in pictures of things that make him happy to maybe make himself a little happier every time he walked into this otherwise empty room.

***

**real friend Michael cont.**   
**\- Feels weird about pictures**   
**\- Shys away from filters**   
**\- Action plan: take more photos/try to help him feel comfortable with the photos**

***

“The thing about sneezing is that it stops your heartbeat for, like, a millisecond, doesn't it?” They're at the mall food court, and the whole group is grabbing food before a movie. Jake, Jeremy, Michael, and Rich are sitting together in a heated discussion (read: Rich: loud, everyone else: quiet). “Like, bros, that's a death.”

“That's a rumor,” Michael tells Rich, biting on the green straw of his slushy. Jake notices that it's nearly empty. “The real shit is that the heartbeat changes to adjust, but it doesn't stop.”

“What the frick!” Rich shouts, eyes wide.

“‘Frick’?”

“I'm working on my cussing problem, Jere-bear the Carebear.” Rich turns in his seat a little. “Oh, your lady's coming back. Actually, they all are.”

Jake smiles a little, going to contribute something to the conversation when he looks at Michael, who looks like he completely shut down. His face is blank, his shoulders are tense his mouth is zipped shut. The straw is left alone.

When Michael starts to pull his headphones on, Jake kicks out his foot, hitting Michael's foot with his own. Michael looks up at him, and Jake smiles warmly, leaning forward a little. Michael looks back at him, blinking and saying nothing still. He jumps even more when Chloe sat down in the seat beside him.

Deciding that speaking wasn't going to work, Jake shot him a text.

**me: What's up**

Michael looked up at him again before looking down, and Jake waited for him to text back.

**Michael Mell: hard to explain, tell you later**   
**Michael Mell: sorry**

Jake sighed a little and looked at Michael, trying to give him a reassuring smile. Michael kept his face down, however, and doesn't see him.

**me: Do you want another slushy?**

**Michael Mell: dude you dont need to do that, im okay!!!**

Jake stood up from the table, looking down at Michael. Michael shook his head and Jake shrugged, taking his empty slushy cup and tossing it out, buying him another slushy and sitting back down, sliding it across the table to him. Michael looked at it, staring for a few seconds.

**me: It's not poisoned, bro**

Michael flushed a little bit, taking the slushy and drinking it. Jake felt his chest warm when Michael turned his eyes down again, but his mouth curled into a smile around the straw.

Tuning back into the table, he heard everyone having their own conversations. He leaned his cheek into his hand, looking around the table, a certain voice lacking in the contribution.

Jake's eyes landed on Jeremy Heere, who was staring at him with wide eyes of his own, jaw slack. Christine was turned away from him, saying something to Rich, and the words switched to static as Jeremy kept looking at him, eventually squaring his jaw and turning away again, leaving Jake severely confused.

Very, very confused, and somehow slightly intimidated by this beanpole of a teenage boy.

***

“Hey, do you have a second?” Jeremy stopped him. They were waiting around for the movie to start, and the rest of the group was inside in their seats (up at the top, of course), and Jeremy had lagged at the back, stopping Jake, who was holding open the door for everyone, outside.

Jake narrows his eyes a little, still on edge from earlier. “Michael's probably nervous without either of us in there with him.”

“That's who I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” Jeremy says, taking a few steps back from the door as more people come, and Jake follows him. “Not to be blunt, but when did you two become so close?”

“We're not that close, dude. We became friends at the end of the year.”

“That's why you kept asking me where he was?”

“Yep,” Jake responds, popping the “p”. Jeremy nods and looks down, bouncing on his feet. His eyebrows are furrowed like he's trying to understand something, and Jake speaks again while he feels his own heartbeat pick up. “Bro, your nervousness is making me nervous. Just- Why do you ask?”

“How do I phrase this…?” Jeremy wonders aloud after a few seconds before he swallows and looks Jake in the eye, body tense and fists clenched. His eyes are narrowed. “If you do anything, _anything_ , to hurt Michael, you're gonna regret it.”

“Okay, wow, let's back up a little bit,” Jake says, holding up his hands. “What would I even do to hurt him?”

At the blank look Jeremy gave him, Jake sighed heavily and continued. “Bad phrasing. What I meant is why would I do anything to hurt him now?”

“You bullied the two of us in the past-”

“Do I now? No, I don’t.” Jake was getting a little bit irritated so he took a breath, calming himself down. “Look, Jeremy, we've all fucked up in the past. The Squip?”

“Don't mention that.” Jeremy's voice was like cutting edge steel.

“Apologises. My point is that I noticed him looking down or whatever and I wanted to try to make him feel better and now I have a new friend. I care about him.”

“You cared about Christine too,” Jeremy blurts out, paling when he realized what he had said, looking up at Jake with wide, scared eyes. Jake, however, was calmer than before, just kind of… dragging feeling. Like someone tied chains around his ankles.

“And I fucked that up too. So what I'm asking is for a chance to not fuck up my friendship with Michael because he's actually turning out to be a pretty good dude, and I promise you that if I ever hurt him, you can ‘make me regret it’ or whatever,” Jake reassures him, not sure where half the things he says comes from but knowing that he means it all. Jeremy looks taken aback as well, and they stand in silence for a couple more seconds, the tension only is broken by the sound of a door opening and the squeaking of sneakers.

“Uh, the… the movie's starting,” Michael says from the doors and Jake looks over at him grinning. Gesturing for Jeremy to follow him, he walks in, climbing to the top of the seats and sitting in between Michael and Rich, making stupid comments to the both of them the whole film.

And if he catches Jeremy staring at him again, scanning his actions around Michael, he doesn't say anything. He gets it, in a way. For example, if someone randomly started trying to befriend Rich, he'd be all up in their grill, so it makes even more sense for Jeremy to be suspicious.

Jake also shares his worries, though, but he promises himself that he'd do whatever he can to avoid hurting Michael any more than he already has. That, he can assure him.

***

“Oh, fantastic, you get to meet my brother and mom,” Michael says as he steps out the car, shoving his keys in his pocket. Jake gets out as well, the overnight bag slung over his shoulder.

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

“They're… interesting people, to say the least.” Michael unlocks his front door, stepping in and locking it behind Jake. Within seconds, a young boy rounds the corner, arms crossed and staring at Jake. “Jake meet Anthony, my little brother.”

“You're not Jeremy,” Anthony says and Jake is taken aback for a second before laughing.

“No, I'm not.”

“When did you make a friend?” Anthony asks, walking up to Michael and glaring up at him. Michael glares right on back.

“Screw off, would you?”

“Jeremy always brings me cheese puffs so when you told mom that you were bringing a friend over, I expected cheese puffs.”

Michael groans and digs in his bag, pulling out a bag of cheese puffs, which Anthony snatches out of his hands, grinning. “I thought that's what you might say. Where's mom, by the way?”

“Work.” Anthony ripped open the bag and started chewing away. “She got called in for some emergency or somethin’.”

Michael gasps, dropping his bag. Jake stood off to the side, watching the interaction. “She didn't think to call me? She just left you, the six-year-old, home alone?”

“I'm ten, you jerk! I was fine!”

“Says you.” Anthony huffs and walks off, rounding a corner. Michael turns to Jake, raising his eyebrows. “Aren't you glad to have met my fantastic brother?”

“Oh, come on, he's not that bad.” Jake follows Michael further into the house. He looks around at the photos on the walls and a few catch his eye. “Your dad's not home? Does he, like, have to travel for work a lot?”

“Uh… my dad, he…” Michael takes a breath, and looking over at him, Jake sees a pained smile on his face. “He left us and doesn't contact us too much.”

“Oh, I didn't mean to-” Oh God, he fucked it up already.

“Nah, it's fine, you didn't know.” They round the corner and come to a living room like his own. Michael grabs a controller from the TV stand and turns to Jake, holding one out to him as well. “Wanna play?”

Jake's stomach was still in knots over the slip of his tongue. He presses his lips into a thin line, stepping forward and grabbing the controller. As the game boots up, Michael talks to him in a soft voice. Jake looks over at him just to see his gaze fixed on the television, blue light illuminating his face in the dim room.

“It's seriously okay. I know it was a mistake ‘cause, well, how could you have known?” Michael looks over at him then, smiling wide. Jake just stares back. “Plus, you've been such an awesome friend, dude, I just… you're epic.”

Jake laughs, a grin forming on his face with that. Ignoring the uncomfortable tumbling of his stomach, he teases Michael on his use of the word “epic” and hopes that the feeling goes away.

***

Eventually, the front door opens and someone shuffles in. The two of them are enraptured in the game, however, and they don't notice that little detail until a voice accompanies it.

“Michael, I hope you and Jeremy haven't been sitting on your asses for hours playing video games already! The night is still young, go out and-” as Ms. Mell speaks, she walks further into the house, eventually reaching the living room. By the point she gets there, the game has been paused and Jake has turned toward the archway, curious of this new voice “-you're not Jeremy.”

“You sound like Anthony,” Michael points out, turning around then. “Mom, this is my friend Jake.”

“New friend?” she asks and Michael groans. Jake chuckles a little, speaking up.

“Friend for about a month and a half, Ms. Mell.” He stands up, stretching. “You have a lovely home, by the way.”

“Nevermind, he is Jeremy, just with a lot of plastic surgery,” she says, shocking Jake. She must see the look on his face cause she barks out laugh. “That's, like, the most awkward thing to say to a parent. C’mon, surprise me next time!”

“...Psychophobia is the fear of mental illnesses.”

“Well, I've been surprised!

“Why do you know that?” Michael jumps in, and Jake looks at him, scratching the back of his neck.

“Snapple caps or Instagram, can't really remember.”

“Anywho, my previous statement remains! Go out and do something! It's only seven PM in summer!” Ms. Mell claps and Michael groans.

“Mom, we already-”

“I'll make you go with Anthony if you don't go.”

Michael's turning the key in his ignition, buckled up and ready to go before Jake even has the time to count one hundred Mississippi s.

***

Jake holds his phone to his chest, tilting it just so. Michael's standing in front of him, staring up at the stars. Wood chips are strewn in his hair after he took a flying leap from a swing set, sticking the landing and then tumbling over his own foot. At the moment, he had been brushing himself off but he takes a small break, distracted by the twinkling sky. His eyes were wide, glasses askew, and mouth a little open, jaw slack with wonder.

Jake just hopes his picture was focused.

Michael eventually does finish brushing himself off, joining Jake on the swing again. There's a silence surrounding them and Jake feels a little bit of tension. Looking over at Michael, he sees Michael chewing on his lip, fists clenching on the chains, and Jake mentally opens his checklist.

“I… said I was gonna explain the thing with me at the mall today,” he starts and Jake nods, eyes focusing on him. “It's… not as difficult as I made it out to be, uh, I'm not good with making friends, heh, obviously. I stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Listen, Michael, we're a group of some of the biggest dumbasses you'll ever meet. There's no need to be scared.” Jake's fingers tangle in his jacket strings. “I… get that we were all _horrible_ to you but… we seriously do care.”

“I don't know, I just… I've never fit into any group. Hell, not even my family.”

Jake’s mental checklist is tucked away for another time. Making sure Michael is okay is more important than observing him like some type of zoo animal. “What do you mean by that?”

“My… I'm anti-social while everyone else is social as can be. I get nervous over the smallest things while surrounded by constant confidence. Yeah, we're all sarcastic and say whatever's on our mind, but significantly less so for me.” He fixes his glasses, and Jake suddenly remembers how they rested crookedly on his nose. He huffs out a laugh. “One of the only times I felt like I got in was when my mom came out as bi. That's like, the _dream_ for a gay kid, to have an LGBT-”

“You're gay?” The question was rather inappropriate for the topic at hand, but it still caught Jake's attention. Michael narrows his eyes at him before lifting his hand and tapping a rainbow flag patch on his shoulder.

“This isn't for decoration,” he simply says, and Jake flushes.

“Ah. Right.” His stomach turns over. The conversation he had with Jeremy was really getting to him; he feels like he needs to constantly watch over everything he says to Michael. Following his urge to fix it, he continues on. “I'm pansexual.”

“Oh?” Jake peers over at Michael again, and Michael looks surprised.

“What's that face for?”

“I don't know, man, I had you figured for the ‘I'm not gay but twenty dollars is twenty dollars’ kinda dude.”

Jake just blinks at him before barking out a laugh. He attempts to say something, but it just comes out a mess of laughter again until he's hunched over in the swing, clutching his stomach.

“It wasn't that funny,” Michael nervously comments, a short laugh tacked on. Jake calms down a bit, looking over at Michael with a bright grin to contrast the dark night.

“You fit right in, Michael. I am so, so glad that you're my friend.”

Michael's face is blank for a second before a smile slowly creeps on and he's turning his face away. Wind ruffles his hair and masks his voice a little, but Jake can still hear him.

“M-Me too.”

***

**good friend Michael**   
**\- Awkward, obviously**   
**\- Thinks he doesn't deserve us as friends**   
**\- (Deserves us as friends)**   
**\- Still very quiet/mysterious**   
**\- There's a lot more too him**   
**\- Action plan: continue getting him to open up, make him more comfortable with me**


	6. Lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh God, oh God, oh God- What?

Jake's picture wall touches the ceiling by this point. Instead of extending outward, he built it from the ground up. Now, it was taller than him, touching the floor and the ceiling.

(He honestly doesn't know if his uncle wanted him using this much tape on the walls. The dude wasn't home enough for Jake to bother to find out.)

He has a few favorites, obviously, in the cluster of photographs.

One of said favorites is actually a series. The first shows Jeremy sitting in the sand of the beach, making a sandcastle (read: lump). The kicker is that directly behind him is Christine holding a bucket of water and looking at the camera with a finger over her mouth. The next shows Jeremy laying down in the sand, hair plastered to his forehead and face blank. You can see a longing to not exist in his eyes, and Christine is a blur of motion. Jake snorts each time he sees them, glad that he was the one taking pictures, not getting splashed with water.

The next is of Chloe, Brooke, and Jenna. It's taken from a downwards angle, and all of their faces are squished in the frame. They're all making disgusted faces and glaring into the camera, making them all look like the Mean Girls™. Chloe had stolen Jake's phone, and it had been hilarious to unlock his phone to see his new background.

Next up in the favorites list is of his best bro, his main dude, his numero uno Rich. Actually, it's of the two of them, taken by Jenna. Rich is holding Jake up like a baby with little to no strain on his face. His grin is proud and Jake is cackling.

Then there's his favorite. His very favorite picture out of all the favorite pictures, the one that never fails to make him smile when his eyes land on it.

It's of Michael. He's sitting on Jake's couch, face turned to the camera, or, well, to Jake who sat beside him. A shy smile curved his mouth and his face was tinted a little red. A white blanket was hanging on his shoulders and his hands wrapped around a can of knockoff lemon-lime soda. The picture is kind of dark, due to the low light, but it just makes the scene feel… warmer to Jake, If that makes sense.

That photo is his favorite above them all, and he doesn't know why. He can't wrap his head around why this photo of Michael just being Michael makes him grin so happy and feel so warm.

Whatever. He's just close to Michael now, that would explain it. It's near the end of the summer, and if Michael and Jeremy were attached at the hip, Jake was attached to Michael's other hip.

That's… really weird imagery, ew.

 _Point is:_ Jake is a lot closer to Michael, and he just wants to become closer and find out so much more about him.

He'll just ask Rich about the photo some time, anyway.

***

Hands wrapped around slushies and jackets wrapped around waists, Jake and Michael walk through the mall (it's always the mall, isn't it?). They had wanted to hang out but not stay at home, so this was one of their only options.

“Arguably, the Coke flavor is at least two times better than the cherry flavor, but today was a cherry kinda day,” Michael's saying when Jake tunes back in. He's talking with the straw in the corner of his mouth, and Jake snorts.

“You're such a nerd.” Michael laughs, biting down on the straw. Jake bumps his shoulder against Michael's. “But you're wrong. Blue raspberry is the best.”

“Blue raspberries don't even exist in nature!”

“Mm, artificial flavoring,” Jake sighed, looking back down at Michael. His lips are wrapped around the straw, a redness to his cheeks.

It's… nice.

And weird.

They head into a clothing store and glance around. While Jake is looking at some hats, he hears Michael sigh heavily behind him. Already smiling he turns around.

“What's up?” Michael holds up a shirt and shows him, a disappointed look on his face. The shirt reads “Sorry, I can't hear you, my SWAG is too loud!”. Jake blinks before laughing. “Oh.”

“Don't look directly at it: it's cursed.” Michael looks at the price tag and grins. “It's five bucks. I'm getting this for Jeremy.”

“...Why?”

“One, it's horrible, and two, I think it fits,” Michael explains, grin still wide and a small laugh tagging along with his words. “Plus, I have to get my best bud the _perfect_ birthday present.”

“Is his birthday soon?” Jake completely forgot to get him a gift. He'd have to just give him money or something-

“Not at all.” Michael looks up at Jake over the top of his glasses, tapping his cheek. “Let's just say I like to shop early.”

Michael walks off the register then and Jake follows him with his eyes, feeling rooted to his spot. His stomach hurts, and he blames the slushy for the feeling, looking down at the nearly empty cup and shaking it a little.

After a few minutes, they walk out the store, Michael swinging his bag. Jake notices that his cup is nearly empty as well, slushy melting at the bottom of the cup. His eyes trail up to Michael's face, eyes widening a little when he sees Michael looking at him expectantly. At Jake's confused face, Michael sighs and smiles a little wider.

“I asked if you want to chill at the food court.”

“Oh! Oh, yeah,” Jake responds. Michael rolls his eyes and faces forward again, bag swinging again. Jake focuses on the crinkling noise of the plastic.

They reach a table and Jake sits first, Michael taking the seat across from him. Jake puts down his cup and looks over at Michael. He sees his mouth moving and forming words. His eyes and brain try to figure out what the words are, his ears distracted and the sound of his voice muffled by his thoughts.

“Jake!” Michael says louder and Jake startles, blinking and focusing on Michael. This time, he isn't smiling. He just looks worried. “You okay? You've been spacing out a lot today.”

 _I'm confused,_ Jake thinks, but he just shakes his head to clear his thoughts and smiles. “You're talkative today.”

Watching Michael's face fall a little before he covers it over with a smile, Jake rushes to fix his words. “I meant that in the best way possible. It's… _rad_ to hear you talk this much. My brain's just fuzzy, I guess, with senior year coming up and my uncle coming home.”

Michael's eyes light up a little and the chewing on his straw lets up. Jake hadn't even noticed that he had started doing that. “Your uncle's coming home?”

“Today, actually.”

Now Michael looks shocked. “Wait, then why did you agree to hang out?”

“‘Cause I wanted to hang out with you? I mean, yeah, I don't see him a whole ton, but I wasn't about to cancel on you like that. Besides, I'll see him tonight,” Jake shrugs, looking away. Maybe he's getting sick? His stomach is still twisting up a ton. “You can come over sometime next week and meet him if you want to.”

Jake looks back over to Michael then, out of the corner of his eyes. Michael's looking down at the table, and Jake worries that he made him feel bad somehow until his eyes travel down to his mouth. His cherry stained lips are stretched into a smile, the straw still in the corner of his mouth, making the smile look a little weird, but Jake still likes it.

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Jake very calmly stands up (read: scrambles) to get his phone out of his pocket and presses it to his ear.

“Hello?” He says to no one, very pointedly not looking at Michael, who he can feel staring at him. “Oh, okay, cool. See you in a bit.”

Jake turns to Michael, and Michael stands up as well, eyebrows furrowed. “That was your uncle?”

“Yeah. He's gonna be home soon and he needs my help carrying some shit in. I should get going.” As he speaks, he begins walking backward. He glances behind himself, almost running into a woman carrying a drink. The woman scowls at him and Jake’s stomach hurts more. Turning around and raising a hand over his shoulder in a wave, he walks fast and leaves the building.

Only when he's outside he remembers that Michael had given him a ride to the mall and that his house was, well, a distance from the mall. Deciding that he would rather walk all the way then risk going back into that mall to find a confused and possibly hurt (oh no) Michael, he sets off on his journey.

One foot at a time.

... One realization at a time.

***

After wimping out thirty minutes into his walk, he calls his uncle (thankfully already at home) to pick him up and refuses to talk to him in the car. Now at home, in his bedroom with his uncle sitting on his bed looking at his picture wall, he's forced to talk.

His uncle, Miles, lovely man that he is, is too nosy for his own good.

(“I call it… getting involved in my nephew's life.”)

He stands up, stretching a little and grinning over at Jake. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Good to be home. It's been way too long since gettin’ to sleep in my own bed.”

“Mhm. A whole four months.” Jake smiles a fake smile with his lips pressed together. He thinks he may be sweating even though the A.C. is definitely cranked all the way up. His uncle turns back to the picture wall, lightly running his fingers along the empty wall next to the pictures.

“Your collection has grown a lot!” He comments and Jake nods. His hands fidget with the hem of his shirt. His uncle pulls away his hand before his finger lands on Jake's favorite picture. He turns to Jake, eyebrow raised. “This kid appears a lot in these pictures. Who is he?”

“His name is Michael, he-he's a new friend.” Oh God, he stuttered. The slight smirk on his uncle's face shows him that he caught that. “We've been hanging out all summer and uh, he's pretty cool I guess.”

“‘Pretty cool’, hm?” his uncle repeats, looking closer at the picture. “What about you and Rich, huh? You guys still friends?”

“Bro, what do you think?” Jake finds himself blurting out. He takes a step closer to his uncle, feeling defensive and a little annoyed. “We're still best bros, obviously. What would make you think we weren't?”

“Maybe the fact that you have four more pictures of Michael up than you have of Rich,” his uncle calls him out on, turning to face him fully with crossed arms and a knowing smile. Jake wishes that his uncle would tell him what he knows, cause Jake is still entirely confused. “That's not a thing ‘best bros’ do.”

“M-me and Michael have just been hanging out more, is all. It's convenient, he lives closer, and he's usually free to do shi-stuff, so it works, you know?” Jake completely fumbles over his words, and his uncle's smile grows.

“You're stuttering a lot, which is something you do when you're not telling the complete truth,” he points out and Jake feels his face go red with shame. What the hell is up with him?

His stomach is still twisting up in knots, cramping like hell while also somehow feeling floaty? His entire body is hot, and he thinks he may be coming down with some kind of sickness because he never felt like this. Underneath it all, though, there was some type of light happiness and longing that he couldn't place.

His ears did their muffling routine again, apparently, because next thing he knows, his shoulders are being gripped by his uncle, and his eyes meet his. His expression is entirely serious.

“Jake? Don't zone out on me, okay? You're okay,” he tells him in a soft voice. It's a voice Jake heard a lot when he first came to live with his uncle. “I can tell this is serious; you only zone out like this when things are serious.”

“Can I… invite Rich over…?” Jake really needed to talk to him about this, but he feels a little guilty, so he extends the invite. “And Jeremy?”

“Jeremy?”

“Michael's best bro,” he explains and his uncle nods as if saying “gotcha”. He agrees to Jake's request, along with saying that he's going to go grocery shopping. Jake knows he's only doing that so Jake can have space to figure things out with his friends, and he's reminded of how much he really appreciates his uncle Miles.

Walking forward and hugging him, Jake feels like a little kid again. He feels like when his parents would meet up with “I refuse to settle” Miles, and he would tell Jake all about these wild stories.

Now, Jake knows the stories were fake. Now he knows that Miles’ lifestyle is risky and that the only reason his parents kept in touch with him is because they lived in the same town.

And now, above it all, Jake is so, so confused.

***

The melody of “Television Romance” from the speaker helps to calm Jake in the slightest, but not really at all. His fingers tap the beat out on his leg while the palm of his hand does the same on his other leg. Jeremy's sitting on the living room couch and scrolling idly on his phone while Rich is checking out Jake's uncle's movie collection.

Feeling the tension begin creeping up to overwhelm him, Jake clears his throat. Jeremy startles from the noise, dropping his phone on his lap, and Rich gets up from the floor, walking over to the couch and sitting beside Jeremy, cheek leaning into his hand on the armrest of the couch. Jake continues the tapping of the beat, and Jeremy takes the silence as an opportunity to start the intervention.

“Any reason as to why you invited only Rich and me over?” He asks, suspicion already in his tone. Rich nods towards him, as if asking the same question.

“Jenna’s a gossip, it would be weird to discuss this with Chloe, and Brooke and Christine would tease me,” he says in one breath, looking away.

“And Michael?”

“It… Michael is the reason I called you two over.”

Jake sees Jeremy and Rich exchange a look before Jeremy turns to him again, eyebrow twitching. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing! I wouldn't do anything to hurt him, I swear on my life, Heere!” Jake covers his heart with his hand, feeling offended that Jeremy would even think that. “Jesus Christ, put away the claws.”

“Dude, just… tell us what it is, then. If you didn't do anything to him, it'll be a judge free zone,” Jeremy continues and Jake turns around to take a breath and calm his nerves when he hears Rich snort.

“Dude, what the fuck? This is your space, this is your area, she can't do that to you,” he says and Jeremy bursts out into laughter. Jake's nervousness sizzles out for a moment and he turns around to face them, a grin lighting up his face.

“It's 2017, stop quoting vines,” he says through laughs. They calm down pretty quick again and both Jeremy and Rich give him a look. He turns his head and takes a breath, thinking over everything that he's feeling and everything that has happened over the past few days, using his own deductive reasoning (and knowledge from Google) to come to one conclusion.

Spinning back around and feeling (semi) confident in his answer and root of confusion, he smiled shyly and spoke.

“I think I like Michael.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact ive had this written for like two weeks and just lacked the motivation to post it aint that a kicker


	7. Letterman Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all so very overwhelming.

Before befriending Jake, Michael knew very few things about him. This is the list:

\- Tall  
\- Hot  
\- Popular  
\- Jock type  
\- Kinda dumb  
\- Rude

It’s short and inaccurate, as Michael will come to find out over a few months. It is so, so inaccurate, and Michael is so glad that he is able to see just how wrong it is. Now, the list is something like:

\- Tall  
\- Hot  
\- Popular  
\- Jack of all Trades  
\- Intelligent (ish)  
\- Lacking in common sense, however  
\- Extremely kind  
\- Seriously, he is overwhelmingly kind  
\- How did I ever think he was rude?  
\- (Obviously, I know the answer to that but I've moved on and forgiven him)

And there's more and more.

Jake is… something else entirely than what Michael had him figured to be. Looking at him now in a clearer light, Michael realized that he doesn't even _look_ threatening; he usually had a smile on his face, and if he didn't, it was just relaxed. No matter how worried Michael might be, Jake's abundance of calmness always seemed to calm him as well.

Let's go back a little bit:

Michael was an outsider to the group. He hadn't suffered the same as them, even though some of them had suffered for way shorter periods of time. (What was weird was that next to Jeremy, Michael was closest to Rich, who had suffered the most out of them all, but we're not gonna talk about that right now.)

Yes, Jeremy told him time and time again that he was definitely a part of the group and that everyone cared about him, but Michael didn't believe him. Jeremy is Michael's best friend; of course he'd say that stuff. That was part of being a best friend: always believing that others are going to love your best friend. So no matter what Jeremy told him, Michael would nod and smile and have it all go in one ear and out the other. Then he'd kick off the cycle once again with a large amount of guilt whenever Jeremy would fall back from Christine or the group whenever they all hung out to check if Michael was okay.

But then Jake reaches out.

Jake is like… the dude, the number one man, the… queen… bee (Okay, listen, there are no “king bees”). To be recognized by him or Chloe was like getting recognized by royalty in their school, and Michael was all too used to that, and definitely not in a good way.

So, of course, he's suspicious.

But then Jake reaches out.

Michael reinforces his walls and pushes away any attempt at friendship that Jake tries to make. He even calls him out on it when it gets too much for him, unable to deal with the obvious trick that Jake is trying to get him to fall for.

Jake turns out to be genuine, though. He pursues trying to become Michael's friend even after Michael completely calls him out, even going as far to apologize. It took a lot of chipping away and work to get Michael to believe that he means well what he's doing, but finally, _finally,_ Michael lets him in.

And Michael feels like a jerk for being so suspicious.

But then Jake reaches out.

He does that again and again and again, making Michael feel comfortable in the group, around him, even in his own skin, and he's so glad he chooses the risk to trust him.

A few days of hanging out grows into a majority of the week, of the summer itself. Group hangouts turn into solo ones until Michael is hanging out with Jake nearly as much as he does with Jeremy, and yet it never once has gotten overwhelming, and that's what surprises him the most.

But now it's getting overwhelming.

What's taking his emotions and amplifying them by a zillion isn't Jake's fault at all, even though Michael tries to say it is to brush off the blame. This isn't even the first time Michael feels like this, and it most likely won't be the last.

There is that time he got partnered with Alfie White for an art project in sixth grade. Between going to either one's house and focusing on each other's face to draw the other, it's needless to say that Alfie’s drawing of Michael had ended up with eyes looking off to the side and red cheeks.

There is that awkward year where Michael was pining after Jeremy. That was in eighth grade, and as time went on, Michael found his feelings fading and he started ignoring them, which caused them to fade ten times faster. (It may have also been the fact that Michael knew Jeremy would never fall for him so… yeah.)

There's small fluttering crushes that come and go, into his heart and out like a fast subway. He's used to it because it's a lot better than being knocked off track with each crush. He's learned to act calmly and composed (read: exactly the same) around his crush as he does to others.

That proves to be helpful right now.

Michael likes Jake.

Michael really likes Jake, and that's overwhelming him.

There's that time when Jake tugs him close by his arm to take a picture, or that time Jake buys him colored pencils cause “You do all that art biz, right?”. There's that time that Jake sews him a yellow bunny (the ears are way different shapes, along with one big foot and one small one) and writes “Lemonade Mouth!” on the stomach. There's the time where Michael is meeting Jake's uncle and as they're watching movies way into the night, Michael gets a feeling as if they're the only ones awake, even though he knows they're not.

Something happens on the screen and something happens to Michael's heart. It stutters and the realization hits him right in the face. The fast subway of fluttering crushes crashes into his heart once more with full power and Michael's eyes go comically wide.

_Oh no_ plays through his mind over and over, swallowing around the lump in his throat and slowly looking over to Jake out of the corners of his eyes. He's focusing on the screen, a piece of popcorn pressed to his mouth without him actually opening his mouth to eat it. Michael swallows again and tries to focus on breathing instead to calm himself down.

Jake says something, and Michael just nods. He honestly can't remember what he said; something about the movie? It's unimportant anyway.

Eventually, they pass out on the couch, popcorn bowl on the floor and uncomfortable sleeping positions engaged. Michael leans into the cushions and shuts his eyes to calm down, but he ends up falling asleep, apparently worn out from the day of doing pretty much nothing.

In the morning, it's surprisingly comfortable, and that's when Michael realizes that he's already started his cycle; he's already unconsciously started his cycle of falling for someone and climbing his way back up, ignoring the love he's leaving behind.

He just hopes he makes it out of this one okay.

***

Senior years starts off pretty bland compared to how Michael thought it would be. He assumed some kind of _bang_ or something to really pep up these angsty teenage-adults, but nope. Nothing.

It's pretty much the same as last year, just with different classes and minor changes. For example, instead of sharing his homeroom with Chloe, he shares it with Rich, and he has study hall with Jeremy. Again.

(“I honestly don’t know how we keep getting so-”

“You bribed them, didn't you?” Michael cuts Jeremy off with, and Jeremy points his finger at him.

“Actually, Jenna did.”)

Another minor change is that instead of sitting across the table from him, Jake sits next to his side at lunch, Jeremy on the other side, Christine next to him. Rich is across from Jake, Brooke across from himself, then Chloe, then Jenna.

The thing with Jake, however, is that Jake moves a lot when he talks. Initially, he already sits close enough to Michael, but as he talks and jostles, arms brushing Michael's side, he knows he's losing it.

So anyway, there are only those small changes. Even though school has begun, he still kicks it with Jake, games with Jeremy, and chills with everyone.

The thing now, though, is that Jake is acting weird. And not an “oh, this is Jake, he just does this” kind of weird, it was a “he's acting differently around me” kind of weird.

And that's a kind of weird that Michael can't deal with.

***

On the first Friday back to school, Michael attends Chloe’s “back-to-school” party.

(It was more like an “I just want an excuse to get shit faced because soon enough I'll be facing the crushing responsibilities of adulthood” party, but let's not discuss that.)

He shows up a little late, having been caught up in an argument with his brother about why he couldn’t come. He enters the packed house, hands already sweating.

“Mikey!” cries a voice, and he turns to see Christine. She giggles and waves. “You're late!”

“Uh… traffic.” He shuffles his feet and rubs his neck. “Where's Jeremy?”

“He's caught up in a few rounds of Mario Kart in the other room,” she tells him and he laughs, responding with “of course he is.” It's quiet between them for a seconds before she seems to remember something, her face lighting up. “Chloe has the basement locked so it's clean for us when everyone leaves, so if you wanna chill down there, just ask her for the key, or get whoever's down there to open up.”

“Oh. Cool,” Michael answers, smiling a little. “Do you… do you know where Jake is…?”

Christine smiles and squints her eyes a little. Michael's heart stutters because it's the “I know what's going on here” smile. “He's in the backyard. Why?”

“Just wondering.” Michael knows that Christine can see right through him, so he smiles and waves, walking past her and towards the back. “I’ll be around if you need me!”

Sure enough, Michael finds Jake in the backyard. He's sitting in a plastic outside chair, phone in hand. As he walks closer, Michael realizes that he's recording some kid chugging a drink. After a few seconds, Michael gives in and quickly taps Jake's shoulder.

Jake turns to face him and his eyes light up. He turns off his phone and stands up. “Hey!” He leans in a little, and Michael expects a hug, but what ends up happening is Jake pats his shoulder. “Where have you been?”

“Argument with Anthony,” Michael answers, a little thrown off. Jake really is acting differently.

“Oh. Nice.” Even the air is tense. Why is it tense? They're outside, there's fresh air. Isn't fresh air good for clearing your mind? “I'm kinda bored out of my mind.”

Michael focuses back in the moment. Jake isn't looking at him anymore. “You're not drinking anything?”

“Really not in the mood to get drunk, I… I don't know, I just have a feeling that something… _important_ is gonna happen tonight, ya know?” Now Jake is looking at him again. “I want to be sober to remember it.”

“Really? I just feel kind of uneasy,” Michael admits, hoping that Jake understands him like he usually does. That Jake gets that him acting differently is affecting Michael.

He doesn't. “You usually do.”

Silence. Heavy silence. Peering up at Jake, his face seems relaxed, so maybe Michael is just overreacting. Maybe he's okay. Maybe Jake has always acted like this and he's just never noticed.

Jake's looking back at him now, eyebrows raised high. His mouth is still shut, as is Michael's, and he seems to be racking his brain for something to say. Michael's doing the same, except his mouth feels like cotton and his tongue is dry. He doesn't think he'll be able to speak even if he found the words. He's too worked up over the whole mood shift (personality shift?) that carrying on conversation seems like too demanding of a task in the moment.

“I'll be inside,” he hears himself saying, seeing Jake nod and turn back towards the action. His feet take him inside and towards the living room where Jeremy is still engaged in Mario Kart. Christine is watching.

Feeling his heart begin to pound in his throat, he sets out to find Chloe, eventually running into her in the kitchen and retrieving the basement key. That conversation was short as well:

“Can I have the basement key?”

“Yeah, sure… you okay?”

“Yep.”

After that delightful conversation, Michael escapes downstairs, enjoying the quiet. He had just gotten there, but the familiar shakiness of his hands that comes with going to parties has already started, the noise a little too much.

He switches on the television and just puts on the cooking network for the noise, pulling his headphones on anyway, but not playing anything. He leaned back on the couch, trying to ignore his insecurities from the Jake situation, and just relax.

Doing so proves to be a lot more difficult than he first expected it to be.

***

“Hey,” comes a soft voice, a warm one. Michael doesn't bother opening his eyes, everything still foggy, but he does shift and groan a little at the voice. “C'mon, Michael, wake up.”

Slowly opening his eyes, his vision focuses. Michael feels a bit of pain from where his glasses press into his skin. Blinking repeatedly to clear his eyes, he sees Jake's face filling his view, and his eyes snap open at that.

“Oh, hey! Good morning.” Michael jerks up at that, causing Jake to recoil with a confused expression.

_“Morning?!”_

Jake stares for a few seconds before he bursts out into laughter. “I'm kidding! It's been like, what… thirty minutes since we talked? Guess you're really tired, huh?”

Michael hesitates for a few seconds, stalking by taking off his glasses and wiping down the lenses. Finally, he sighs. “I'm always tired.”

“Right, right,” Jake says slowly, dropping down to sit beside him. Michael looks over after putting his glasses back on to see him focusing on the tv. “You really should've locked the door, though; what if someone other than me would've come down here and found you sleeping?”

Michael just shrugs in response, even though he knows Jake is right. He can see Jake look at him out of the corner of his eyes, but he doesn't say anything. A chef on screen has just screwed up what they were making by using salt instead of sugar.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“What did I do wrong?”

“...Huh?”

Michael looks over then and sees Jake's hands twisting in the fabric of his jacket, which he has now taken off. The red jacket lays on his lap, little pins clacking against each other with each shift. “You're acting all weird around me. I… I want to know what I did to cause this…”

“You? You didn't do anything, I-” Jake cuts himself off, whipping his head around to look at the screen again. By now, the chef has realized their mistake and is currently failing to fix it by balancing it with sugar. “Do you want the truth?”

“Well, I mean, yeah.” Nice and snarky, Michael, that's really the way to fix whatever you did wrong. “...Please tell me.”

“Al-alright.” The pins clacked as Jake shifted. He turned towards Michael, eyes wide and a hand lifting up. “I-”

Michael stares at his rapidly approaching hand, mouth shut tight. Suddenly, said hand clenches into a fist and is abruptly dropped back down. Looking back up at his face, Michael sees his eyebrows furrowed, mouth pressed into a line.

“Hey, Jake, I-”

“I'm scared,” he blurts out, looking up at Michael's face. Michael's taken aback by his expression, showing raw emotion. “I'm really fucking scared.”

“...Of what?” Michael's volume is quiet, surprised by this turn of events.

“I… I was thinking the other day that um… I'd end up doing or saying something and you'd leave me or something.” Jake huffs a laugh, standing up and shifting from foot to foot, back to Michael. His hand runs through his hair, clenching into a fist in the back. “It's stupid, really stupid, sorry for worrying you-”

Michael stood up, putting his hand on Jake's shoulder. Jake jolted at the touch, tensing up. Turning his head to face Michael, Michael gasps a little at Jake's glossy eyes.

“Wh-Why would you think that?” he asks, grip light. Jake blinks a few times before he steps away from his hand and sits down again, looking away.

“My parents left, my best friend was hooked on a drug that changed him, I was a dick to Christine, and you, and everyone.” The next time he looks over, there's a few tears on his face and he laughs again, wiping his face with the back of his hands. “I'm not- I'm not even sure why you stay.”

Michael hesitates for a second or two before he sits next to Jake and turns towards him, putting his hands on his arm. He wonders if Jake's okay with this, but he pushes it to the back of his mind in favor of making sure he's okay.

“I'm not going anywhere, I don't know why you _think_ that I'm going to go.” Michael, keep your head level, choose your words carefully. “I care about you, Jake, even if you messed up in the past. You're one of my best friends at this point, dude.”

Jake's leg starts to bounce and another tear falls. Michael's hand trails down to Jake's, and he squeezes it. He notices Jake looking at him out of the corners of his eyes, evident sadness on his face and in his eyes.

“I… I… I think I might like-” His breaths are heavy and he cuts himself off “-Michael, I…”

Jake gulps and squeezes Michael's hand back, starting to speak again. “There's a reason why I'm so afraid.” The sentence is surprisingly even, free of stutters.

“Your parents, right? I'm not like them, Jake, I'll-”

“Please… please let me say this, okay? It’s really important.” Jake stands up, turning towards Michael again, taking a minute to calm himself down. “Michael.”

“Jake?” Michael stands as well, holding his hands up to his chest.

“Michael, I… I think I might like you more than you like me,” Jake admits, and Michael freezes up, heart beating faster.

“Wh-What do you mean by that?”

“Michael, please.” Jake's voice is a whine and he looks off toward the wall.

“I really don't kn-know.”

“I like-” Jake cuts himself off again, turning back toward Michael. “You know… you didn't want to be my friend for a while and… you might be getting sick of me or something ‘cause I'm clingy? Look, I g-gotta go.”

With that, Jake shoots Michael another sad look before grabbing his jacket and heading up the stairs, leaving a confused and overwhelmed Michael behind. Michael, not knowing what to do or how to appropriately react, sits down on the couch again and just stares at the tv.

***

**best friend Michael**   
**\- Touchy**   
**\- Kind as hell**   
**\- Still awkward**   
**\- Hurts my heart**   
**\- Suffocating**   
**\- I need to make room, distance myself before I screw up or hurt him again**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOAH MEERRY CHRISTMAS AND HOLIDAY FOR ALL Y'ALL AND BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED JAKE PROGRAMMING NEXT TIME YEET


	8. Notebook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh no.

The room is so quiet after Jake's confession that you can hear a pin drop. It's broken by Rich whooping loudly and pulling out his phone.

“Hell yeah, Chloe owes me money!” he says, starting to type. Jake moves without thinking and plucks the phone out of his hands. It's quiet for another moment before Rich holds out his hand, palm up, and speaks slowly. “Jake, give me my phone.”

Jake shudders and sets down his phone again, mouth dry. “Just… please don't text anyone about this. I don't… I don't even know if I do like him.”

What was really getting to him is that fact that Jeremy hasn’t said anything yet. His nervousness was high, and he risked looking over at Jeremy. He expects a narrow-eyed glare, foaming at the mouth with the rage of, “What the fuck are you doing, Dillinger?” Instead, he's greeted with something else entirely.

A smile. A wide one, at that.

“Jeremy? Any input?” Jake asks, trying to gently nudge him into giving his opinion.

“I'm… you obviously make Michael really happy, I mean… he talks about you a _lot,_ ” he reveals, and Jake's face warms. “So just… keep making him happy, and we're all good.”

Jake backed up again, hand catching on the pins by his heart and messing with them. He blinks at Jeremy and speaks. “I… I hope I can keep doing that…”

“You’d better,” Rich butts in, standing up and stretching. “So… that’s it? That’s all you called us over here for?”

“‘That’s all’? Richard Goranski, do you realize how groundbreaking this realization is?” Jake runs both his hands through his hair, locking his fingers behind his head, huffing a breath. “Jesus _Christ,_ dude, ‘that’s it’.”

“What, you found out why you’re gettin’ hard over Jerry’s best friend. What’s the big deal dude?”

Jake talks over the embarrassed groan from Jeremy at Rich’s crude phrasing. “No, no, bros, you don’t _get_ it. I’ve never… this is… I don’t get it.” He’s ready to start speaking again when “I really like you” begins blaring from the speaker and his mouth dries up, face reddening again. “Oh my God, that’s it.”

“...Carly Rae?” Jeremy questions and Rich shushes him, swatting his arm.

“Shut up, do you see that face? That’s his thinking face.”

Jake looks over at the speaker as if it just solved all of his problems, which, it kind of did. Well, it didn’t help to change the situation or the slight hurt, _but_ it did clear up most of his confusion. “I really like _Michael.”_

“Uh… you kinda said that already?” Jeremy pipes up again, and then another quiet smack sound is heard. “Quit it, Rich!”

“This ‘like’ is so much more than any of my other ‘likes’, dudes, that’s why it feels so… _off!”_ Jake should’ve understood this, really. He didn’t crush on Michael like he did with Christine or Chloe; this was so very different. This was one of the only times that he got to know the person and then crushed on them, not the other way around. The _possibility_ of crushing on Michael hasn't even crossed his mind until recently. He just knew that he wanted to know Michael's deal, that he wanted to be friends with him to maybe decrease the amount of time his mouth is in a frown, and now he wants to increase the amount of time that Michael's mouth was on his. “Oh my God, I like him so much.”

When he hears a sniffing sound, he turns towards the couch again and sees Rich wiping away fake tears. Jeremy's squinting at him and leaning away, holding his arm. “My baby's got a genuine crush.”

“I'm older than you.” Jake's train of thoughts is broken by the dramatics. “Plus I've had genuine crushes before!”

“Oh yeah? On who?”

“On… on… okay, listen, you might be right, but shut the fuck up.”

He turns away from Rich’s smug smile and frowns a little, but it only deepens when a few negative thoughts cross his mind at once.

“I'm such an idiot,” He mutters. “Creep” begins playing over the speaker and he tenses, swinging an arm out to gesture to the speaker. “Even my music is mocking me.”

Jeremy listens to the music for a little bit, matching Jake's expression. “Jake?”

“Michael was right, so right. I'm so stupid.”

“Mickey D called you stupid?” Rich asked and Jake would've glared at him if he wasn't so preoccupied.

“He agreed with me when I called myself an idiot a while ago and uh… I knew he was right then, but _now…”_ Jake scratches his blunt nails over the surface of a pin. The sound is quiet. “He's never gonna say yes. To what, I don't know, but I know I'm gonna get rejected, and it's gonna fucking suck.”

“Woah, woah, woah, wait a sec.” Jeremy tilts his head a little, resembling a confused puppy. “Why are you saying that?”

“The kid didn't even wanna be my friend, I mean, it just makes sense.” He takes a breath, calming himself. His nervousness has been pumped up recently, causing him to run out of breath rather quickly when speaking, especially topics like this. “Wow. Wow. I'm going to get my heart broken. Oh man, that's gonna hurt so bad.”

“Dude, I think you're blowin’ this outta proportion. He's not gonna reject you,” Rich cuts in, standing up.

“You're just saying that ‘cause you're my friend.”

“No, I'm saying that because I'm _Michael's_ friend too, and I know the signs of a crush. Especially in that kid, he's obvious as hell, just not to you, apparently.”

“I have to agree with Rich,” Jeremy chimes in, standing as well. “And I know Michael the most out of all of us.”

Still, however, Jake isn't meeting their eyes and is instead staring at the floor, the dark thoughts racing. Oh God, what if he loses him as a friend? How could he not even consider that factor? If his heart wasn't pounding before, it definitely is now.

“Do you want us to hang out longer? Talk about something else?” Rich suggests, voice softer than usual. Jake finds himself nodding rather quickly, needing a distraction from all of whatever that is going on. As they're walking out of the living room, Jeremy pats his back and makes Jake look at him.

“Seriously, Jake, at least talk to him about it?” Jake almost shakes his head no before Jeremy continues. “I'm being truly honest; I know he won't ditch you. He doesn't do that to people, and I would know.”

Jeremy walks past him while Jake lingers in the doorway and thinks. Trying as hard as he can to shove down all of his dark feelings, he nods to himself and mumbles his words. “Yeah. Yeah, I'll talk to him.”

***

On the night of Chloe’s party about a month after realizing his feelings, Jake fakes sickness and goes home. He doesn't even seek out Michael before he leaves.

When he gets home, his uncle is making coffee in the kitchen. The smell somehow eases Jake's nerves, but not by much. His stomach is turning this way and that, and his head is pounding to the rhythm of his heart.

“Jake? I thought you were staying at a friend's house,” his uncle says, hearing the door open and click shut. Jake stays quiet, kicking off his shoes and dropping his bag on the floor as well, the thump of it hitting the wooden floorboards too loud. He squints against the kitchen lights as he enters, the light too bright. He hears his uncle gasp. “You… you've been crying.”

“Have not.” His voice betrays him, cracking over the second word. Sucking in a shuddering breath, he stares at a cartoon cat clock on the wall. It's past midnight. “Just… tired.”

“Jake,” his uncle says, voice level and with a soft edge that causes comfort to wash over Jake. His lip quivers and he just wants to bang his head against the wall and go back to being himself. “Jake, what happened?”

“I-I'm sick,” he chokes, and it's not entirely a lie by this point. He honestly feels that if he has to talk more about this serious shit, he's going to vomit. It hurts. “And tired. So tired.”

Not only is he messed up over Michael, but he's also messed up over school itself. He can't even go back to playing football because of his stupid fucking legs, and he has trouble enough focusing when his hands aren't shaky as hell. He should stop drinking coffee before school, or maybe drink more? The hallways are so quiet, but so loud, too many, too little people, and-

Jake's brought back to reality when someone hugs him. “What?”

He's surprised to find that his face is wet. “Jake, Jake, please listen to me.”

“You're gonna get better,” his uncle continues when he stays silent. His hands clench in the fabric of his uncle's robe. Coffee smell worsens his head. “But you need to talk to him.”

“That's- that's-” his tongue is thick in his mouth, throat dry as a desert.

“Please. Look at yourself.” His uncle pulls back by a few steps, and Jake takes this time to scrub at his eyes. “You're killing yourself like this.”

“You're being a little dramatic, I mean, it's been a _month.”_ Stop. Stop, please.

“A month since you realized all of this shit. A lot longer than a month since you started feeling it,” his uncle points out, and though he knows he's true, he coughs out a laugh and waves a hand.

“Ridiculous.” He starts taking slow steps backward, eventually spinning on his heel and rushing up into his room, pulling out his stupid notebook, writing down some stupid words messy and fast before falling in his bed and curling up, waiting until sleep overcomes him.

***

 **best friend (??) Michael**  
**\- Too kind**  
**\- Too much**  
**\- Tell him**  
**- I need to tell him**  
**\- Action plan: tell him the truth**

***

Lucky for Jake, Halloween fell on a Saturday that year and his uncle is going to be out of town, meaning he can have his party. Also lucky for him, everyone in his group of friends got permission to stay the night on Friday and Saturday.

**(me: You're coming, right?**

**Michael Mell: you want me to come?**

**me: Obviously…???**

**Michael Mell: i wouldnt know dude, youve been acting so weird around me**

**me: I… need to explain myself. Just… please come. I really need to talk to you.**

Ten minutes pass. Jake's nervousness pumps up a few notches.

**Michael Mell: on one condition.**

**me: Anything!**

**Michael Mell: you stop stuttering over text like a complete dork**

He barks out laughter as he types.

**me: You drive a hard bargain… but fine!)**

Michael's the first to show up. He enters the house, toeing off his shoes in the hallway and putting his bag in the living room. Meanwhile, Jake fidgets with his hands, hiding them behind his back when Michael turns to face him again, peering at him with wide eyes over the top of his glasses like always.

“Can I get a hug?” Jake's heart talks for him, moving his mouth and activating his vocal cords without asking his brain.

(Wait… what did he just think?)

He locks eyes with Michael, scanning for a reaction, and he gets one. Michael's lips turn up into a smile and he steps forward. Jake, way too eager, takes a large stride forward and wraps Michael up in a hug, holding him close.

He hopes that Michael can't feel his heart through his jacket, hammering this hard. His hands grasp at his jacket, grounding him, because today was the day. Today was the day that he came clean.

(God, it sounds so dramatic.)

Jake wants to at least have this if everything went wrong. If when he confesses, everything crumbles.

Maybe he should get into poetry? He's really good at having these dramatic thoughts.

When he pulls away, he does it slowly, dragging his hands and enjoying the drag of the soft red fabric on his hands.

Eyes trailing up again, he meets Michael's gaze, and he coughs a little.

“Do you want to talk now?” Michael asks, voice low. Jake thinks he doesn't want to break the moment with loud speech.

He shakes his head. “Later. When everyone is asleep. We can go outside or the park or somewhere. I just… need to talk to you in general. Alone.”

“I get that.” The doorbell rings. “You… you should get that.”

“Mhm. You can, uh, you can bring your bag upstairs, if you want. Leave it in my room.”

Michael nods and picks up his bag. As Jake's walking to the door, he hears the thumping of his feet going up the stairs.

He opens the door to a grinning Rich and Brooke.

“Didja tell him?” Rich asks, pushing past him. Brooke looks as if she's buzzing with excitement.

“I totally called this!” she squeals, looking around the house.

“Hey, can you two _shut it?_ He's right upstairs!” he explains.

“Did you tell him?” Jake spins around to see Jeremy and Christine.

“Do you guys just come in pairs to mock me?!”

“Usually, yes.” Oh, wow, look at that, it's Jenna. Surprising, Chloe’s with her.

Jake groans, shutting and locking the door behind them all. He exchanges a few words with them, spending about five minutes, before heading upstairs with their bags to deposit them in his room as well.

He knocks open the door with his hip, dropping the bags onto his bed. Looking across his room, Michael is at his desk, presumably looking out the window.

“You gonna join us downstairs?” Jake asks, a teasing tone seeping into his voice. He already almost feels fully comfortable around him again, and he totally believes in himself to tell him the truth.

Michael says nothing.

Jake's confidence falters a little. He walks forward, towards Michael. His socks slip a little on the floor.

“Michael?” He says. His hands are shaky again.

Michael says nothing.

“D-dude?” Why isn't he talking? What happened? Is this real? What happened? Another step forward.

Michael says nothing and turns around. Jake's heart drops to his feet when he sees his face streaked with tears, eyebrows furrowed with fury. His heart plummets through the ground when he sees what's in his grasp.

Project Michael Mell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aha yeet ami-amiright


	9. Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What can Jake really do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i <3 you all

Jake's drowning in the thick tension in the room. Words claw at the base of his throat, and he can nearly taste them in his mouth, but he can't force any of them out. This seems to piss Michael off further, his eye twitching and letting out a dry laugh.

“So you've got nothing to say?” He asks, and a shiver goes up Jake's spine with how hoarse, how _hurt,_ it sounds.

Jake takes another step forward holding his hands out like at any moment Michael will attack, even though he knows he won't. It's like he can't see Michael building the walls that Jake broke through all over again, and Jake prays from some kind of word vomit to happen just so that he can say something, _anything._

“Just when I trusted you, just when I thought that maybe miracles can happen, everything fucked up again!” Michael's hands are shaking, clenched around the notebook. Jake's sure that he's shaking as well. “I played myself _again.”_

Jake's going to vomit. His eyes hurt, and so does his head, and throat. It feels like he tried to swallow sandpaper. Still, he manages to choke something out. “M-Michael-”

“No, shut up, shut the _fuck_ up, Jake!” Jake's shoulders hunch up towards his ears. For the first time in a while, he feels so small compared to someone else. “Are you serious? Completely serious?”

He shakes the notebook. The paper flutters loudly, and Jake sees his writing on a few of them. “You sure know how to act like you give a shit. So all of that ‘I don't want you to leave me, you're my best friend, I care about you’ shit was all just a fuckin' joke, huh, Jake?!”

“Please, please, just-” The words are sour on his tongue as he reaches out again. Michael steps back, anger radiating off of him, face completely contorted into one of betrayal.

“What's your plan, huh? What are you gonna do to me?” Michael questions, crumbling. His voice is breaking and clogged sounding, and Jake's drowning again, taking in shallow breaths. “I've told you- told you so _much._ I-”

Michael sounds like he's on the verge of panicking. Jake pulls himself out of his own head and tries to help. When he steps closer, Michael recoils, the back of his legs hitting the desk. Jake realizes that he's just messing up more, so he takes a few steps back again. He just keeps staring at Michael with wide eyes, hoping that he can somehow convince him that it's not what he thinks it is.

He swallows. “Michael, Michael, please let me e-explain.”

Michael's fist curls in the fabric of his jacket. His lips are pressed together, and even though the anger seems to pump up a few notches, Jake takes his silence as an okay to go on.

“It's not- it's not what you think, I swear on my life.” His eyes are shifting around, looking everyone else in his room that he can, searching for a life preserver. “It's something- it's a good thing.”

Jake looks at Michael for a second and he's swallowed further by the tension when he sees his expression. Determined, however, he carries on. “It's for- it's for me. My… I wanted to remember what I learn about you so that-”

“I'm just… I'm sick of this.” Michael sniffs, scrubbing his face with his sleeve, taking off his glasses in the process. Jake sucks air into his lungs, ready to continue. He knows the phrasing of his last sentence was very sketchy, so he's going to need to smooth that over.

“Of what?” Jake asks, stupidly. Michael gives him a look.

“Of being hurt.” He flips through the notebook until he reaches the next blank page. Looking at Jake's desk, he grabs a pen and uncaps it with his teeth. He peers up at Jake again, mumbling around the cap as he writes. “‘ex-friend, heartbroken Michael’... there are more words to describe it, but I doubt you care.”

“Michael-”

Michael drops the notebook onto the floor. The sound rings in Jake's ears. He caps the pen again and grabs his bag, looking at Jake out of the corner of his eyes, walking out.

Jake's heart officially snaps with Michael's next words.

“Don't talk to me or even look at me. You have everyone else, anyway. Bye, Jake.”

Michael slams the door behind him. Time seems to slow down, and Jake continues to swallow mouthfuls of tension in the air, drowning, drowning, drowning. He thinks he hears footsteps.

He steps forward on wobbly legs, picking up the notebook.

**ex-friend, heartbroken Michael**   
**\- Is in love with me**   
**\- What a creep**

Yep. His heart is now crushed into the floor. He drops down on the floor.

The door opens, at least, he thinks it does. Then he hears words, so he knows he was right.

“I heard- There was slamming, Michael left, Jeremy followed, Jake, I- Oh my God!” He thinks it's Rich. He also thinks he's shaking.

Oh, yeah, he _is_ shaking. A lot. And crying. His vision is blurred heavily by the waterfall of tears. There's hands on his cheeks, and he tries his hardest to focus on the face in front of his. He sees an underwater version of wide eyes, fear, and hears garbled words.

He hears more footsteps, and what they say is clearer than Rich’s words.

“What the _fuck_ did you do to Michael?” Jake sucks in air as he glances over to see Jeremy this time. Jeremy's angry stance dissolves, it seems, and he walks over as well. He kneels down next to Rich, and the two of them trade a few words, and Jake watches helplessly. He is going to throw up.

After a few minutes of nothing except his heart pounding in his ears and droplets soaking his jeans, the two others help him to his feet. The lead him to his bed, making him sit down, although his hands automatically twist in the fabric.

After many more minutes of nothing, he's able to calm down, actually feel the plushness of the quilt under his hands, feel the warmth of Rich’s hand on his arm, hear the quiet conversation between the two, hear the crinkle of paper. He blinks hard, trying to clear his eyes, scrubbing at them with his sleeve.

“Jake?” prompts Rich, softly. Jake's voice is rather croaky.

“How long has it been?”

“About five minutes,” he answers, and Jake's head hurts a little at that. It had felt so much longer than just five minutes.

He suddenly has a thought. “Jeremy?”

“What?” His voice is harsh. It hurts. Jake sees Rich give him a look.

“Did… did Michael leave already?”

“Yeah. I walked him out.” Jeremy stands, glaring at the notebook. Project Michael Mell seems like Project I'm a Fuck up now. Jeremy looks at him then, eyes narrowed, and for the second time in an hour, Jake feels small. “Now. Would you mind explaining this?”

He gulps. Hopefully he can explain it better to Jeremy. Maybe that would be one person less who hated him.

“It's like… it was a, uh, journal, sort of thing.” God, this is hard. Choosing the right words was kinda like putting together a 10,000 piece puzzle. With your eyes closed. “To track… progress, if that makes sense.”

“To track progress? Dude, ‘learn more about what's up’, ‘make him more comfortable with me’,” Jeremy quotes, flipping through the pages. Jake wants to drown the book in gasoline and set the sucker on fire. His brain makes a “lit” joke. He decides then to set his brain on fire as well. “This is so fucked, man.”

Jake stands as well, looking at Jeremy and picking a loose thread from his jacket. “I was… wasn’t making much progress, ya know, with Michael not wanting to… be my friend… _fuck.”_

Jake's hit again with the fact that he has now completely lost Michael. There was no recovering from this. What was he going to _do?_

His eyes start pouring once again, and he shields them with his arm, plowing through his next words.

“I wanted to make sure I was… was gettin’ somewhere. Then it started becoming an actual journal, sort of, where I just tracked my feelings, and I'm so fucking stupid, Jer, please believe me.”

His head is pounding, his heart is crushed into the floor, and Michael is gone.

Fantastic.

“...I believe you.” Even Jeremy sounds taken aback. Jack peeks out from behind his arm to see him hand the notebook to Rich. He sniffles. “I… I don't know what to do now.”

He turns to Rich, and Rich shrugs. His lips are sealed, however. He stands and pats Jake's back. It doesn't really help to calm him.

“God, I don't even wanna have the fuckin' party anymore.” Jake's eyes light up and he turns to Jeremy. “Should I go to his house? Would that help?”

“If you want to be brutally murdered by his mom and brother and then make absolutely no progress, then go right ahead.”

“Jeremy…” Rich says, and Jeremy frowns at him.

“The last time I've seen Michael cry like that was about two years ago. I'm allowed to be a little pissed.”

Neither of them argue with him on that one.

“I'll… I need to talk to him at school. Figure out a plan. I just want to sleep now. Forever, preferably,” Jake responds, taking the notebook from Rich and throwing it on his desk. He sits down on the edge of the bed again. “How are the others?”

“Christine is murderous, Jenna disappeared somewhere, and Chloe and Brooke were talking to each other about something,” Rich tells him. His eyes are uncharacteristically sad. “Get some sleep, buddy. We'll wake you later.”

With that, Jeremy and Rich leave the room, talking amongst themselves. Jake can't hear what they're saying, but it's not too hard to figure out the topic.

He lays down and curls up underneath the blankets, repressing all of his emotions hitting him at once. He knocks out pretty quickly, considering everything that had just happened in about an hour of time, and truly wishes that when he wakes up, Michael will still be there and all of this is just a nightmare.

(Spoiler alert: it's not.)

***

Jake's Halloween party sucks.

Chloe, decked out in a cat costume (of course), practically becomes the host with how often Jake sneaks upstairs for a breather from all the noise.

Some couple choose to, uh, “get down to the funky sound” on his bed, and he calmly goes downstairs, gets a spray bottle, and sprays them with fizzy soda until they stop and leave.

(The boy growls at him, spitting out some insult. Jake just looks at him with an annoyed face until he backs down and leaves.)

Jake checks the bathroom a lot. It's usually occupied, so he doesn't think too much of it.

The times when it's empty, though, he enters and just sits on the tiles for a few minutes, trying not to cry. It's so cold.

Needless to say, Whitney Houston isn't on the playlist. Neither is The Runaways.

It's past four when the last person leaves. There's a few people that crashed on his couch, one on the kitchen table, and another on the floor, still clasping a can of beer, outside the bathroom. Chloe, Jenna, Brooke, and Rich sleep in his room, Chloe and Brooke in the bed, Rich and Jenna on an air mattress. Jeremy had snagged Jake's uncle's room, so that's where he and Christine slept.

Jake carefully stepped over the person in front of the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him. The room itself feels cold, like there's tension floating around the room. Before Jake can drown again, he splashes his face with scalding water, burning his hands a little, but effectively waking himself up.

He sits on the edge of the bathtub. This bathroom is smaller than the one that was at his old house. Everything's shoved close together, claustrophobic, constricting his throat. He clenches his fists to ground himself.

Jake doesn't know what he expected, coming in here again. Michael doesn't suddenly appear, doesn't call him back or even read his texts. Everything isn't better: it's actually just worse.

He sits down in the bathtub. The ground is a bit wet, so that sucks, but it's not like he's gonna wear this costume ever again.

(He's a skeleton this year, a Hawaiian print shirt on his upper half, a straw hat as well. Brooke painted his face; he was originally going to ask Michael.)

After messing around on his phone for a bit and bathing in self-pity, he falls asleep and wakes up ten hours later with the worst crick in his neck in human history.

He believes he deserves it, though, so it's all good.

He honestly deserves the worst right now.

***

Michael won't look at him in school.

On Monday, Jake stands in front of his locker. Jake knows for a fact that Michael needs to grab his sketchbook from the locker before art, which is also before lunch, so he knows that he needs to get to it. He expects a “get out of my way” or a “fuck off” from Michael, but all Michael does is stare past him, at his locker, and walks off.

Minutes later, a confused Jeremy approaches him. Jake scoots over a little. Jeremy opens Michael's locker and grabs his sketchbook for him, and Jake's heart trembles.

“I really fucked up, didn't I?” He asks, softly, and all Jeremy does is look at him sadly before shutting the locker with a bit of a slam. Jake's sure it was unintentional, but it still rings in his ears.

Good news is that Michael still sits with them at lunch.

Bad news is that he sits as far away as he physically can from Jake and arrives late and leaves early. His hood is up, his headphones on, and his head, surrounded by his arms. Jake swears he can almost see the walls around him, padlocked shut. For Jake, especially, there's a password and a riddle _and_ an obsidian wall that he has to get through to even begin to reach Michael.

Jake has no idea what to do. Every attempt to speak to Michael fails, every attempt to call or text him are left unanswered, and every attempt to even approach him is left with Michael pulling on his headphones and moving away.

He thinks that Michael might be on guard, like he's expecting Jake to pull some kind of humiliation stunt. The truth is that if he was pulling one, he's pulling it on himself, going after Michael like this and failing.

At the end of the week, absolutely nothing has changed. He still doesn't know what to do, or what to say, or how to even make progress. He considers writing down a plan, but God knows that he'd somehow leave that notebook out too for Michael to find.

He considers going to his house but declines his brain before it can get too far into formulating a plan. He knows it won't work, so what's the use?

Friday, after school, there's a drama meeting. Mr. Reyes gives them thirty minutes to run through lines, and Jake takes that opportunity to slip out of the room.

He walks down to the art room and peers inside. Like he thought, art club’s meeting today. The door is propped open with a wooden door stopper and soft music flows from out of the classroom. The art teacher is chilling at his desk, a dude Jake doesn’t know up there talking to him.

Then, Jake finds him.

Michael’s sitting at the desk near the window, staring out of it again. The light shines on his face, illuminating it and catching on his glasses, allowing them to shine. From here, Jake can’t see his face all too clearly, but he knows that his lips are curved downward into a frown and his headphones are pulled up as per always. His pencil lays on his sketchbook, tip of the lead pointing at an unfinished line. Jake is also unable to tell what he’s drawing.

He wishes he could force his legs to move forward. He wishes he could just clear his throat, get his attention, speak to him and make the words make some semblance of sense, get him to believe him and talk to him again.

The entire moment is just full of déjà vu, and he could just walk right in and-

Jake takes a shaky step backward before spinning on his heel and dashing out of there and into a bathroom, leaning against the door and breathing. God, even just going there was too much for him, he realizes, as he sniffs.

He really needs to make a plan, and quick; he can’t stand this.

But right now... Jake's hopeless.


	10. Sketchbook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out that coming up with a plan is harder than the plan itself.

Phase one of Jake's plan to get back Michael was to leave notes in his locker.

Sure, it wasn't a big step, and sure, it probably wouldn't work, but it's purpose served to slowly get Michael to soften his guard without even realizing it.

These notes consisted of things like “Have a great day” and “I care so much about you” and “I'm such an idiot” and “Please let me explain”. What Jake has noticed is that each note he leaves seems to get sadder and sadder.

(He tries to fix that, becoming more light-hearted and joking, but it feels kind of gross to him, trying to goof around with Michael in a time like this.)

He leaves these notes consistently throughout the day, not simply popping one in the morning and that was all.

Jake figures that he's making some kind of an impact when he opens his own locker one morning and a piece of paper flutters down, landing by his feet. He doesn't think too much of it, bending down and scooping it up. It was only a few words, but his heart still seemed to stop.

**Why are you doing this?**

This… this meant something, right? He was getting through to Michael! Michael actually communicated back with him! His heart began to race.

“Dude,” someone says, simply. Jake recognizes the voice as Rich’s. “Is that from who I think it is?”

Jake nods enthusiastically, pulling the scrap of paper a little closer to himself. _A response._

“Not to, uh, burst your bubble, but… this doesn't really help anything,” Rich points out, and while Jake's heart does sink, he grits his teeth against the pain and turns to him.

“At least he's… he's acknowledging me again.” Jake can't look Rich in the eye when saying that. He stares somewhere over his shoulder. The hallway is a lot more crowded than he thought. He feels huge in the long hallway. “I _exist_ to Michael again.”

His voice must really sound as choked as he thinks it does because Rich puts a hand on his arm. His body tenses up. “Oh, Jake…”

Phase two of Jake's plan to get back Michael is writing the apology letter.

It's as hard to do as he first remembers it, and it's not because of his pride this time.

He racks his brain for comprehensible words, phrases, and sentences to appropriately spill his heart onto the notebook paper. What can he say to cause Michael to believe him? How honest can he really be?

He fills his otherwise empty room with music while he writes. His uncle is gone once again, and for once, and he feels completely alone. Texting people doesn't help, hell, not even _calling_ them helps.

Going outside would help if it wasn't freezing, but guess what it was?

Freezing.

So he stays inside, pen tip to the paper, not really doing much at all.

Phase three of Jake's to get Michael back is… trying to talk to him.

It doesn't work all too much.

Michael doesn't respond to him, actually, Michael seems on edge from the very proximity of him, looking around a lot like he's waiting for something to happen.

“I burnt the notebook,” Jake tells him, but the words flow out of his mouth like water being poured into a volcano. They sizzle and crack, expanding and doing nothing.

After a while of that attempt, he doesn't see the point anymore. It's been three weeks since the incident. Nothing, nothing is going to change by him doing what he always does.

Phase four of Jake's plan to get back Michael is… useless.

It's useless.

Jake's useless.

It's not going to change anything. Everything is going to stay the same fucked up way it is. What is the point anymore?  
He'd might as well give up by this-

Phase five of Jake's plan to get back Michael is to not give up.

This is the kid he has feelings for. This is the kid that he wants to see happier than anything, the kid that gave Jake a world Jake failed in giving back.

He's being so very dramatic, but God, this _hurts._

It's hard to not give up. Giving up seems like a much easier plan than pursuing his current strategy of trying to get through a brick wall.

But Jake's not a quitter. He'll be damned if he quits this early in the game. He'll be damned if he quits at _any point_ in the game.

All in all, that's Jake's plan to get back Michael. The phases are acted on out of order, and they're not really phases at all, but that's as much of an action plan that he has going on right now.

There are other outliers, additional things to get through to him, such as Jeremy gently chipping away at his icy frontier and Jake occasionally visiting the art club.

(“Visiting” was more like staying after school and entering the club, acting like he actually had to ask the teacher things and just hanging around. However, acting quickly turned into a fascination with drawing and art, and he thinks he's now genuinely a part of the art club. He even has his own sketchbook. He's always been somewhat decent at art, doodling here and there, but it was never a fascination like this.)

Still, though, he searches for something… something big he can do to get Michael back to being his friend, ‘cause damn if he didn't miss him.

The problem is that he has no idea what to do.

***

Jake begins to spend less and less time alone in his house. The quiet finally begins to become too loud, staying there alone with the artificial noise of a reality of a television show like a nail in his skin and the silence of him turning it off like a hammer.

He began going on pointless walks, drives, trips, whatever. He became friends with the whole foods cashier at register number three from how often he went there. Her name is Julia, she's a single mom with two jobs, and she has a son named Jake.

That aside, he got to take more pictures. Going on the longer works hurt like a son of a bitch, but in the end, he still got to snap pretty photos.

On Sunday, Jake takes one of these journeys. Bundled up in a winter coat, scarf, fingerless gloves, and sneakers, he set out, deciding to walk. And walk. And pointlessly walk.

After a long time, an amount that he isn't sure of, he ends up in a local park. Kids are playing on the jungle gym, their faces red from the cold and giggles floating like lights around them. There's a teenager playing along with them, and Jake smiles to himself.

He walks along the edge of a pond in the park, seeing the frozen over water. A part of him wants to test his limits and stand on it, seeing if it would crack, and the other half of him reminded him of Jack Frost, so he managed to keep himself away from doing so. He did take a picture of the glass-like ice littered with tiny cracks, though.

A few snowflakes begin to drift down from the sky. It's very light, powdered sugar, so Jake doesn't immediately head back home. He takes a picture of a flower covered in snowflakes.  
He comes across a bench and uses his jacket sleeve to clean off the snow and dry it. Of course, however, the bench is still wet, so he shifts uncomfortably after sitting down. He takes a picture directed at the empty half of the bench.

Jake scrolls through his pictures, also paying attention to how his breath puffs out. He comes across older pictures, and his heart picks up when he gets to his favorite picture.

His favorite picture.

Wait.

An idea begins to form in his head, but it's all loose ends with no conclusion, no… end game. However, he does make a note of it on his phone, screenshotting it and making it his background. This way, whenever he unlocks his phone, he'll see that idea and jog his creative process a little.

With that, Jake begins to head home. He notices how the family has left, and he assumes they left a while ago. He also notices how he was the only one in the park, and he frowns in the smallest.

Even in public, outside of that empty house, he is alone.  
Being alone and lonely are not the same, and right now…

Jake is lonely.

But it doesn't matter.

He scuffs his sneaker on the ground, shuts his mind up, and goes home.

***

The day is like any other; it's after school, art club is meeting, and Jake is there as well.

By this point, he kind of isn't there completely for Michael. It's more like he's there for actual art club. Who knew drawing was this much fun? He had a knack for drawing headshots.

The art teacher (Mr. Harris, apparently) dismisses the club, and everyone goes their own ways. Jake's in his own space, taking his time packing up, staring down at his sheet of paper. He has drawn a kind of good headshot of a random character from some comic he's probably seen somewhere. At least, he thinks so.

The light is flicked off, and Jake puts away the paper. He doesn't even hear the footsteps, he's so distracted by his own thoughts.  
Hands slam down on the desk, and Jake jumps. His heart is in his throat when he sees tan hands, red hoodie sleeves ending at the wrist. Holy _shit._

Jake looks up, and even though he knew who was going to be there, he's taken aback by the sight of Michael Mell actually looking at him. Looking at him dead in the eye, pissed the _fuck_ off. Jake is actually terrified.

“What the _hell_ is your problem?!” Michael asks him, voice a bit loud. Jack swallows and he sets his bag down on the chair, searching for the right words to say.

“What do you mean?” He ends up saying, pressing his fingertips together. Michael barks out a laugh, pushing his fingers back and through his hair, looking away.

“You're impossible. Completely impossible.” For fuck’s sake, Jake misses him so much, that even him talking to him like this has a lump in his throat. “Take a fucking _hint,_ Jake. I don't want to be your friend again.”

“...Why?” Jake questions after a few seconds. His voice is choked, and he thinks he sees a flash of something over Michael's face, something… soft… but he figures he's finally delusional.

“You know why.” Michael's nose scrunches up and Jake wants to punch himself in the face for having the audacity to think “that's really cute” in this moment. His stomach curls. “The notes, the talking, the _everything._ Quit it. _Please._ Look, I'm begging you, is that what you wanted?”

Michael lifts up his bag, unzips a front pocket, reaches his hand in and crunches paper in his hand. When he pulls it out, he opens his hand and allows many of Jake’s notes to flutter down onto the desk. “Yet somehow, with all of these notes, you've never had the guts to say ‘I'm sorry.’”

Jake’s throat closes more but he powers through, opening his mouth to speak, and nearly doing so, but Michael holds up a hand. Michael's face is now blank, and empty.

Jake's heart contrasts his face. It's full, nearly bursting at seams, at that, with _feeling._

“I don't want to hear it. For the second time, goodbye, Jake.”  
  
And Michael walks out, leaving the scattered notes on the desk behind him.

At that moment, all parts of Jake's plan are thrown out the window except phase five and two.

He needs to think of something big to do, and he needs to do it soon. Before it's too late.

He shovels the notes into his backpack and slings it over his shoulder. He looks around the room for a bit, wondering why they haven't kicked him out yet.

He begins walking to the door when he sees it and his heart near stops again, jaw-dropping open with the flashing light bulb of an idea. He scrambles to unzip his bookbag, not caring if he spills anything, needing to get this down. He drops his red sketchbook on a desk, pulling out his phone, writing down his idea to remember it and pulling up the picture. Sitting down at the desk, he looks up and out the window before beginning to sketch.

When he pulled out his phone, he had checked the time. It's three-thirty. Drama club today ends at four-thirty, meaning they couldn't kick him out until another hour passes. _That_ means that he needs to work fast. This wasn't going to be a one day project, so he needs to get as much done as he can.

Jake just hopes that this works. It's ambitious as hell, and it might not turn out good, but please, _please,_ let this plan work.

If it doesn't, Jake won't have any plans left. He'd have to give up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i need to actually start replying to comments again dhhdwi sorry lol


	11. Graffiti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, though, it's worth the four hours of sleep a night.

The clock showed that it was three AM. Well, actually five minutes past three. Seeing this, Michael decides that he might as well stay up until four and go to sleep then. Until then, he’ll just goof around on his phone and make his bad eyes even worse.

He considered turning on his bedside lamp, but then if he did, his mom might see the light or something and then come check on him, and he doesn't want to trouble her with why he's up so late on a Tuesday. He knows he has to get up for school in a couple of hours, he just can't even get to sleep to start with.

He has tried to. He had turned off his phone, putting it on the charger and on the table, burrowing under the covers with the intent of sleeping, but after a few hours passed, he decides to just do whatever on his phone until he got tired enough _to_ sleep.

That was three hours ago.

By this point and time, Michael had pretty much accepted the fact that he wasn't going to get any sleep that night, and that really sucks. Tomorrow, he'll be dragging his feet even more, mind cloudier than ever, thought process fuzzy black scribbles.

Even though his eyelids are heavy and his mind is slow, he just can't seem to go to sleep. This really does fucking suck, but he does it to himself, really.

You see, Jake Dillinger betrayed his trust _brutally._ The guy had left his notebook of observations on his desk, open, and then sent Michael upstairs to find it there. Glaring at him.

Who the hell does that kind of thing?!

And now… now Jake was playing the victim here. Leaving notes for him, lingering around the art room like he gave a shit about art suddenly, even getting _Jeremy_ to try to get him to trust Jake again.

(“Michael, I… I think you misunderstood the notebook,” Jeremy says, voice soft. Michael's fingers thread through his own hair and yank. His head stings with pain. “I'm so, so sorry.”)

But still… Michael _still cares._ And it's killing him.

His heart still races around Jake, his palms still sweat, and his face still reddens. He can't control it, how his eyes prick a little with tears or the foul taste in his mouth.

He hates himself for it. Whenever he realizes just how out of his hands this whole situation is, he hates himself even more.

Shutting off his phone and rubbing his temples with his middle and index fingers, he rolls over and attempts to sleep again.

In the end, five minutes are better than none at all.

***

“You… you do realize you're asking me how to _break the law,_ right?”

That's the first thing Michael hears when he rounds the corner towards the art room. It doesn't surprise him all that much, to hear this kind of conversation in his school, especially after hours. What does surprise him is the voice.

That's the art teacher's voice. Mr. Harris. What the hell?

“Are you about to tell me you've never broken the law? Besides, no one cares about this law!” Is that… is that _Jake?_

Michael stays hidden in his position, listening in on the conversation. Mr. Harris grumbles.

“Look, kid, I like you, alright? There's got to be an alternate option.” Michael hears footsteps and he panics until he realizes that they're heading into the classroom. “I'll give you some poster paper or…”

The voices fade away until they're too quiet to be heard.

Obviously, Michael's curiosity is peaked, but… it's not really _his_ conversation to listen to. Besides, he should really stop caring whatever Jake was doing; focusing on it and paying attention to him only hurt more. He needs to continue to forget it.

He decides to skip art club. He wasn't in the mood to draw or sketch or even just sit in that room anyway.

Might as well go home.

***

The next time the club meets, however, is mandatory. If Michael skips, he'll be booted from the club, and he'd rather not face that situation right now.

He's happy to see that Jake isn't in the room when he gets there, even if his heart stings a little bit.

(No more notes have appeared in Michael's locker since he got on Jake's case about them. Not even one. The fact that Jake was giving up on Michael really didn't sit well with him, but who was he to protest? He asked for this.

Plus... there was pretty much nothing Jake could do by this point to get him to forgive him.)

The meeting is like any other; Mr. Harris makes a few announcements, one saying how the art club is going to be participating in a competition against another school, another about how they're going to design posters for the winter dance. After that, he sends each of them off to do some sketching, mainly to work on said poster designs. Michael takes his regular seat at the window, dropping his bag on the table beside him, digging out his sketchbook and putting that on the table as well. He gets out a pencil as well, sitting down, flipping open to a new page. He takes a breath and looks up and out the window to see-

"What the-" he finds himself saying out loud, cutting off quickly. The thing that caused that reaction was the white poster paper put up on the brick wall opposite the window.

Does that mean someone's cleaning up the graffiti? He can't help but be disappointed by this news; the art was actually rather pretty to him. He is shocked, however, by how long it took for the graffiti to be cleaned up. Thinking about it, this section of the school is rather secluded, and... to be frank, his school sucks.

Still, though, the corners of his mouth turn down.

He must be so distracted by the graffiti situation that it causes Mr. Harris to walk over. When he taps his shoulder, Michael jumps, looking down at his sketchbook and seeing a still blank page, then turning toward Mr. Harris' smiling face.

"Michael, everything alright?" he asks, looking down at the sketchbook as well.

"Uh... yeah." Michael clears his throat and sits up, looking back out the window again. He lifts his hand and points out at the paper. "When did they start cleaning up the graffiti?"

Mr. Harris looks over as well. His face seems to pale a little bit and he sighs, rubbing his temples. "I... think today is the first day..."

Seeing his strange reaction only makes Michael frown deeper. "Are... are you alright?"

"Uh, yes, yes I am," Mr. Harris responds, laughing a little. He pulls a chair up beside Michael, sitting down and clapping his hands. "Now! Let's brainstorm those dance poster ideas!"

Michael squinted at him, realizing the rather obvious topic change, but he said nothing about it, pressing the tip of his pencil to the paper and beginning to draw and talk.

***

Two weeks pass from then, and Michael's beginning to worry about Jake.

Jake cut off all forms of contact with him entirely without a second thought, and while that is what Michael told him to do, he didn't expect it to be this easy. He expected Jake to put up a bit more of a fight than this, but this is what he got instead. He should be happy enough with that.

(He's not.)

The reason he's worrying, though, is because of how Jake is acting.

First, it's the suspicious conversations he overhears him having with Mr. Harris.

"Jake, kid, are you kidding me?" Mr. Harris shout-whispers, and from this angle, Michael can see the anger on his face. Jakes back is towards him, though, so he can't see what his expression is. He assumes it's an easy going grin because, well, it's Jake, and his words aren't all too worried.

"If I get detention, then so what?"

"Does a criminal record change your mind?" Michael's heart begins to pound. What is Jake getting himself into?

"C'mon, it's not that serious." Jake spins on his heel and begins walking in Michael's direction. Michael gasps and scrambles back, entering the nearest room to avoid Jake running into him. Through the door, Michael hears his next words. "Besides, I already told you I'll do anything."

The next thing that has him worrying is Jake's appearance.

His face has changed, if that makes sense. Purple bags are now under his eyes, his eyes half shut. He looks exhausted, arriving at school with messy hair and slightly wrinkled clothes. He carries himself the same, though, with a constant smile on his face and his back straight. Michael wonders how he manages to look so put together even while he obviously isn't.

Michael sees just how severe his exhaustion during study hall. For once, he goes to the library instead of the art room, looking for a book for class. Talking to the librarian, he finds out where it would be, heading that way.

It's in the very back corner of the library and he walks down the aisle, skimming his fingers along the binds of the books, scanning for the book. After a few steps, his foot catches on something and he catches himself with his hands on the bookshelf in front of him. When he steadies himself completely, he turns around, ready to glare at whatever caused him to trip.

That's when he sees Jake.

He's asleep, leaning on his bookbag and drooling on his hand. His chest rises with every breath, and Michael notices that he tripped over his leg. Jake also has a closed sketchbook on his lap, pencil still clutched in the hand resting on top of the book.

When he stirs a little bit, probably having been startled by Michael kicking his leg and making a loud noise when catching himself, Michael hurries away, heading to leave the library, deciding to just google and download a PDF of the book.

(He hates how much his heart aches at the sight of Jake sleeping there, crashing down in the library. Then he hates how his brain begins to wonder if that's a daily routine for Jake.)

Michael's worrying reaches a high point when he opens his locker once again, a day after the library situation, and a paper flutters down to his feet. His heart freezes in his chest, watching it fall as if in slow motion, swearing he could feel the scrap land on his feet.

**I know this is a lot to ask, but please be patient. I'm almost done.**

The note almost _scares,_ Michael. It just caused more loose ends to develop, his confusion swirling in his head. “I'm almost done”?

He puts the note in his pocket and gets his books, closing his locker. He begins walking to his class, passing by Jake. He can feel Jake's eyes on him, burning his skin. He tells himself not to look back, no matter what, but he does just that. Jake meets his gaze and grins at him. Michael walks by faster, ignoring the clenching of his heart.

All in all, Michael's worried about Jake and he kind of hates himself for that. He means, Jake obviously doesn't care about him anymore, so why should he care?

When he thinks of this, his mind returns to the note and he feels a bit guilty about how he's feeling. What if Jake really is planning something to make up to him?

What if, what if, what if?

What if Michael could just disconnect completely from all of this fucking drama and just _breathe?_

***

It's been, what… a month and a half since Michael stopped being Jake's friend? Maybe a month? Who knows by this point. He just knows that he's becoming sort of numb to everything and that time is passing by as slow as a sloth, as if it was mocking him.

He's over at Jeremy's house. It's a Friday night, just turning eight o'clock, and the flicker of light from the television fills the otherwise dark room.

Red light washes over them again. Michael glances over at Jeremy, cocking an eyebrow at him. “You alright?”

“H-Huh?” Jeremy jumps, looking back at him. Michael swears he can see beads of sweat on his forehead, and the game hasn't even become that intense yet. “Yeah, I'm fine!”

Michael keeps looking at him until Jeremy chokes out a laugh and turns back to the screen, hitting “restart from your last checkpoint”. Slowly, he turns back to the screen himself and focuses on it, clicking buttons rapid fire and blocking mostly everything else out.

(Even he himself can tell how different he's acting, just with his gaming alone. His eyes are half closed and his posture is tense. He's never usually this tense when gaming with Jeremy, but… he's still fucked up over everything.)

His phone buzzes where it lays on his leg. He picks it up with one hand, still using the other to hold the controller and play the game.

Expecting it to be his mother, he flipped it over and turned it on, looking down for a second to read the message from the notifications. And then… he freezes.

“Did you just- are you okay? You're really tense,” Jeremy said, voice managing to break through his thoughts. Michael unlocks his phone and opens the message.

**Jake Dillinger: I finished it. Oh My God, I actually finished it!!**

Michael has read over the message a ton of times, and by this point, he can feel Jeremy reading the message over his shoulder. He turns off his phone again and shoves it in his hoodie pocket.

“What the hell is that even supposed to mean?” Michael wonders aloud. This is so ominous and just… _weird._ He kind of wants to text back and ask Jake to explain himself, but he's not going to.

“I… I don't have a clue.” Looking at Jeremy, he seemed honestly baffled, and his face was bright red. Michael assumed it was just the lighting. “Is he still trying to get you to trust him again?”

“Yes… no… I don't know!” Michael stands up, running a hand through his hair and tugging it in frustration. “He's acting all weird and stuff, I… I don't know.”

“...Would you even forgive him?” Jeremy asks softly and Michael faces the truth. The truth glares down at him, and he shivers under its gaze, words spilling out of his mouth.

“Probably… yes, I would. I miss him a fuck ton, I… but I can't _trust_ him, he's probably trying to expose me or some shit.” Michael turns to face Jeremy, throwing his hands out as if he has given up. “I feel like if he said sorry or just… did something _big,_ I'd definitely forgive him but… the trust is still broken.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

It's quiet for a bit after that. Jeremy rocks on his heels and checks his phone. Michael checks his own again and rereads the message, mind buzzing. Once again, Jeremy's voice cuts through his thoughts.

“Do you- do you want to go to 7/11? Get some slushies, some junk food, just come back here and chill?” Michael's hesitant to accept the offer, but he does after what Jeremy says next. “I'm paying.”

As a result, a few minutes later, the two of them end up in Michael's car, Jeremy driving for once.

(Michael's honestly too tired to drive, and Jeremy wants to practice driving more.)

Michael leans back in his seat, shutting his eyes. He takes off his glasses and holds them in his hand, just letting himself sink in his own thoughts. They'd be arriving at 7/11 soon enough, though, so trying to sleep was rather pointless, but whatever.

Five minutes pass. Then ten. It's… taking longer to get to 7/11 than he remembers it taking.

The car eventually stops, and Michael sighs in relief, opening his eyes and ready to see the glowing sign of the- there isn't a sign. It's just dark with a few streetlights. Putting on his glasses, Michael's completely baffled.

“Jeremy, bud?”

“Y-Yeah?” He's unbuckling his seat belt and taking deep breaths.

“Why are we at school?”

True to his words, they were parked outside the school. Unsurprisingly, the parking lot only had one other car in it, maybe a truck, but it was parked far away.

“I have something cool to sh-show you before 7/11.” Jeremy gets out of the car and Michael is quick to follow. “...Darker than I imagined.”

Michael pulls out his phone and turns on his flashlight, scowl on his face. “Jeremy, I swear to God, if this is another one of your ‘genius pranks’-”

“Oh my God, Michael, the orange juice and milk thing was _one time, let it go!”_

They began walking over the grass, Jeremy leading the way. Michael was a little put off by the darkness that completely swallowed them, their school too concerned with the football team to bother buying outside lights, but he was mostly okay. They made idle conversation on the way to wherever Jeremy was taking them, and Michael thought he knew where when he saw light glowing from around a corner.

“This is around the art room, right?” Michael asked and Jeremy nodded. Oh. What if Jeremy was just going to show him where they had completely cleaned off the graffiti.

When they got to the turn, Jeremy stayed right behind. When Michael saw him stop, he turned to him with a curious expression. “Go on and see for yourself.”

Michael's stomach knotted up at that statement for some reason, but he plowed ahead anyway, hoping to get this over with.

Around the corner, there was a foldable chair and a box on the grass, two flashlights pointed at the wall where the graffiti was. The paper covering was still there. Michael just switches off his own flashlight and stands near the box, even more confused.

“Hey, I-” he begins to call out to Jeremy but cuts himself off quick when he hears voices. They're coming from around the corner, actually, one of them belonging to Jeremy. Michael's heart freezes in his chest when he has a realization.

Jake rounds the corner.

Michael is about to say something, run off, yell, but he's rooted to his spot. He becomes even more stuck somehow when Jake doesn't even walk over to him.

Jake walks up to the wall, grabbing the corner of the paper covering the graffiti. Wait… is the paper covering larger than it was before? He becomes ripping off the paper until the wall is completely uncovered and-

The graffiti hasn't been cleaned up. Quite the opposite, actually.

The blob of color is still there. On either side of the blob, there are two more blobs. The one on the left is painted blotchy red on the inside. The one on the right is yellow, the color smoother on that side. That's not even it, though, not at all.

On top of the blob is a person's shoulders, neck, face. They seem to be standing behind the blob.

The lines and smudged and shaky. The shoulders are bright red, under the flashlight, at least. They're wearing a hoodie.

Their skin is tan, and they're wearing glasses. Their hair and eyes are dark brown, and they…

Michael is shaking hard, and his vision is blurry. Jake rips off the rest of the paper off, throwing it on the ground. He turns to glance at Michael for a second, and Michael sees his sleeves rolled up, paint covering them. He's wearing a mask that covers his nose and mouth, probably to avoid inhaling paint fumes.

He grabs a brush and paint from somewhere on the ground. It's a small tin of black paint, and he dips the brush in it. Michael watches his movements carefully, heartbeat loud in his ears.

First, Jake paints the word “I'm” in the red blob. It's a little messy, but Michael doesn't mind.

Next, Jake paints the word “sorry” in the yellow blob. By that point, Michael has taken off his glasses, tears flowing freely down his face.

Jake puts down the can, turning to look at Michael. Michael slides on his glasses again, staring at him and how he slowly approaches him. Jake pulls the mask off, it hanging around his neck on a string. His eyes are wide, as if he’s in disbelief. He’s probably shocked that Michael is still standing there.

“I… I understand if you still don’t forgive me,” Jake says, his voice quiet. Michael doesn’t really hear the words; they sound muffled, like from behind a quilt or on the other side of a wall. “I get it, I really do, I was a jerk for the notebook thing, but it was honestly just a thing for me to, you know, remember stuff and-”

One second, Michael is staring up at a nervous and sad Jake. The next second, Michael’s glasses are pressed into his skin, face pressing a little into the side of Jake’s neck, arms around him as well. Jake freezes for a second or two before hugging Michael back equally as tight, maybe even tighter. His shoulders shudder, and Michael knows that he’s now crying as well.

“I-I miss you, Michael, I really do.” Jake sniffs and lets up a little during the hug, not letting go, though. “I, uh, wrote a letter too, apologizing for everything, if… this didn’t work.”

“It worked,” Michael chokes out, laughing a little. “It worked, Jake.”

“Thank God.”

Michael doesn’t know how long they hug, just standing there in the dark, nor does he know how long it takes them before they sit down on the ground, not minding the cold wet grass, shoulders pressed together and backs against the wall. He gets a text from Jeremy, saying he went home and for Jake to bring him back, and he just sends back a picture of the wall, glowing under the flashlight, accompanied with a thumbs up emoji.

What Michael does know, however, is that even though he may not fully trust Jake right now, he forgives him, the hole in his heart closing ever so slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKY HI SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG  
> also, menacefh on tumblr??? drew fanart for this fic????? IM IN LOVE  
> I WOULD LINK IT IF I KNEW HOW TO BUT JUST GO LOOK AT IT AND GIVE THEM LOVE i literally almost cried when I saw it it'S SO GOOD AAAAAAAAAAA


	12. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Jake are friends again. It's kinda really awkward, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY HI I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE OH GEEZ,,  
> honestly, i had completely abandoned this story, and then at like 4 am yesterday i got super angry with myself and was like ">:( I'M GOING TO WRITE A CHAPTER" and even with that the story is.... not over  
> idk when the last chapter will be written/posted and im super sorry about that  
> like i had said, i lost almost all my interest in bmc and am still slowly inching out of the fandom, but  
> yeah  
> idk i got really angry about an incomplete story especially one of my favorites that ive written, soooo yeah  
> also, apologies for any plotholes, inconsistencies, or anything like that. i wrote this in a storm of Anger and i know my writing style May have changed (hopefully for the better) but yeah  
> also the formatting randomly shifts for some reason??? idk why but i am Too lazy to fix all that, so i hope it doesn't annoy y'all too much
> 
> LASTLY  
> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING I LOVE YOU

Falling back into a steady routine is hard, still a work in progress. Jake knows that Michael is still walking on eggshells around him, and honestly, he can't blame him. He wouldn't even dream of blaming him, actually.  
  


Jake, the fool, has yet to sit Michael down and fully explain what the notebook was for and what he had meant by “Project Michael Mell”.  
 

Don't get him wrong, though. He's thought about it on multiple occasions! He just... hasn't gotten the courage to actually do anything about it.  
  


He's gaining it though, with each passing day, with every time Michael and he speak, exchange looks, or even just walk side by side without it resulting in someone getting hurt. It's tense, of course, tension thick enough in the air that it could be cut with a knife, but _God_ is it better than losing Michael for good, better than only getting to hear his voice in passing or when Jake managed to piss him off just enough to yell at him. Jake would take awkward pauses in conversations over complete silence and brewing pain any day.  
  


He takes it and he cherishes it. He fucked up once, and, in his opinion and probably Michael's, one time too many. He's lucky to have him back in his life, and excuse him if he's being dramatic, but he wouldn't trade this for the world.  
  


He wouldn't even think about it.  
  


***  
  


The first time him and Michael hang out again after becoming friends again is at Jake's house. Shockingly, his uncle isn't home. Wow. Big shocker, right?  
  


Wrong.  
  


Anyway, it's not a sleepover or a group event or anything special. Honestly, Jake had just been bored out of his mind watching movies all day and he texted Michael to invite him over. In a heartbeat, Michael agrees.  
  


So here they are now, leaning on the arms of the couch on opposite ends, heads turned toward the screen watching some movie. It's a horror flick with a ton of action, gore, and jump scares. If Jake's going to be honest, the special effects are absolute shit, but that just makes it better.  
  


He isn't focused on the movie, though.  
  


He's focused on Michael.  
  


Michael, sitting across from him with his legs pulled up to his chest. Michael, bundled up, curled into himself with a patterned quilt around his shoulders. Michael, with his glasses just slightly crooked on his nose, his face turned a bit towards Jake but his eyes wide and trained on the screen. Michael, with his lips slightly parted, surprise mixed with fear on his face as he watched the girl on the screen go into a room she should _not_ go in, but who actually has logic in a horror movie. Michael in all of his… Michael-ness.

 

God.

 

Jake is so in love with this boy.

 

And wow isn't that a dozy to admit to himself. _Love._ Of course, Jake has experienced love before, he loves his friends, loved- loves his parents, loves his uncle, but this love is different. It's love in the romantic sense, love as in “when I see you, colors seem brighter, I feel warmer, and everything is just… better.” This is love as in every time I get a text from you, I smile.” This is love as in “I could just spend a day goofing off with you, playfully insulting each other, and make fun of your dumb face and then kiss you and tell you how beautiful you really are at the end of it all.”

 

This is love as in “I'm in love with you, Michael Mell, and I don't know what to do with that.”

 

Michael's gaze flickers over to him then, and his mouth closed. Jake knows that he has been caught staring, but instead of trying to deny anything, he just offers Michael a crooked smile. It's quiet between them, both not saying anything. Michael ducks his head, most likely embarrassed, and pulls his hood up. He looks up at Jake again with his own small smile, and in the white light from the TV, he can see the red blush that dusts Michael's cheeks.

 

Turning on the couch, Michael angles his body completely towards Jake and leans his back against the arm of the couch. He stretches his legs out and his legs overlap Jake's, both of them way too tall for this couch. He still says nothing and neither does Jake, just watching it all happen. They share another look, another shy, small smile before turning back to the TV.

 

This means something, Jake knows that much. This means something, although he has no idea what, and he fears questioning it and breaking whatever it is between them, whatever it is that's going on with words, so he remains silent, watching the film.

 

Besides, a little bit of mystery is fun, isn't it?

 

***

 

On Friday, school gets canceled due to meetings that the teachers must attend. Apparently, that means that everyone decides to come over to Jake's house uninvited and randomly. By the time the third person comes, Jake tapes a paper sign to the front door that says, “Just walk in”.

 

A pleasant surprise, however, was that Michael was the first to show up.

 

“Hey,” he had greeted when Jake opens the door. He's in his hoodie and his nose is red from the cold. His headphones are on, and, upon not hearing music, Jake assumes that Michael is using them as ear muffs.

 

“You,” he starts, taking Michael's arm and pulling him inside. “Are an idiot. Are you trying to get frostbite?”

 

“Oh, give me a break, it's not that cold,” Michael argues. Jake stares at him with a narrow-eyed glare and Michael shivers. Jake's eyes blow wide and he gestures to him. “You didn't see that.”

 

Slowly, but surely, the entire group comes over in bits and pieces. Jenna is second, seeing as how she lives _right next door._ Chloe and Brooke are next, saying that they're bored and that Jake has a cool house. Jeremy and Christine are second last, surprisingly not showing up together. Jeremy shows up because he heard that Michael was there, and he was bored. Christine shows up a second later because she heard that everyone was at Jake's house and _she_ was bored. Rich shows up very last, only a few minutes after Christine, and pounces on Jake when he sees him, fake-sobbing all like “why didn't you invite me to the party?” Jake just laughs and sways with the weight of him in his arms, depositing him on the couch.

 

And here he is now, exiled to the floor of the living room in his own house. They're watching _Mulan_ , Christine and Rich having argued over what movie to watch. Rich wanted to watch _Brave_ so that he could do his horrible impression of Merida’s accent. Christine wanted to watch _Moana_ because while she knows damn near every Disney song by heart, she knows the songs in that movie by heart and _soul._ Jeremy quietly mentions _Mulan_ and both Christine and Rich stop speaking, look at him, look at each other, and then make a lunge for the remote to put that movie on.

 

Jake is sitting beside Michael on the floor. Jenna, Chloe, and Brooke are on the couch, Rich and Christine laying on their stomachs, watching the movie intently, and Jeremy laying on his side beside Christine. There's little to no talking, and if there was anything, the sheer loudness of the movie would mask it.

 

“Hey,” comes a tiny whisper from his side. He looks over and sees Michael staring at him. He smiles at him.

 

“Yeah?” he responds, and Michael opens and closes his mouth for a second, but nothing comes out.

 

“Um. Nothing.”

 

“Okay…?” Jake looks at him for a second longer before turning back to the movie.

 

This is Jake's sitting position. His legs are bent up and a bit spread, left arm over them and right arm on the ground by his side. His right arm is between him and Michael.

 

Jake thinks he knows what Michael had wanted to ask when he slowly feels a weight on top of his hand.

 

Looking down, he sees Michael's hand covering his. He's stiff, his hand cupped awkwardly over his, and Jake looks up to his face. He's bright red and is pointedly not looking at Jake. His eyes are wide, and his lips are pressed flat into a line, almost like he's surprised that Jake hasn't pushed his hand off yet, almost like he's surprised that he actually went through with it.

 

Jake blushes and smiles at him, and he's sure it's soft, sure that he looks completely in love with him. He flips his hand over and laces their fingers together, squeezing his hand reassuringly. Michael looks at him out of the corner of his eyes and Jake's smile widens a bit at that. A small smile curves Michael's mouth and he looks away again. Jake moves over a bit until their arms are pressed against one another, every point of contact between them warm and comforting.

 

They stay like that through the rest of the movies. They stay like that during the argument Rich and Christine have over the best Disney princess, through the mini popcorn fight on the couch that results in popcorn in Michael's hair, and they stay like that even when Jake can feel Jeremy's eyes on him. He doesn't mind. This is a moment between him and Michael.

 

They watch three, maybe four more movies. Jake couldn't tell you what they were about, having been distracted. At first, it's by Michael's hand, and then it's by Michael leaning his head on his shoulder, and then it's by Jake falling asleep and leaning his cheek on Michael's head.

 

This ends up being the only time in his entire life that Jake is okay with missing a chance to watch _Legally Blonde_.

 

***

 

The first time Michael sleeps over occurs about one month after becoming friends again. Him and Jake spend most of Saturday together in an arcade, battling against each other in DDR until they're slumped over the railing heaving for air. They race against each other and censor all the curse words they yell at each other for the sake of the children's sake.

 

(“Frick you, dude!” Michael's face is red from laughing so hard and from rigorous DDR.

 

“Oh yeah?! Watch out for that gosh darn blue shell, motherfricker!”)

 

After that, they walk around the mall window shopping with slushies in hand. Jake drinks his way too fast, resulting in a brain freeze that he needs to sit down to wait out. He hears Michael snickering and he looks up, glaring at him while he shivers. Michael laughs harder, and even through the full ache in the center of his head, Jake finds it in himself to be able to laugh back.

 

In the car on the way home, Michael takes control of the AUX cord. And, of course, for some reason, Michael decides to play Super Bass. Jake isn't complaining, that song is a fucking _bop_ , it was just so out of left field that it shocks a laugh out of Jake. He taps the beat out on his steering wheel and bobs his head as well.

 

(He scream sings the chorus too while Michael attempts to as well, laughing too hard to make it too far.)

 

Upon getting to Jake's house, him and Michael head inside and plop down on the couch. It's quiet for a few seconds, Jake trying to think of something to do while Michael messes around on his phone. It's no surprise that things are still awkward like this; he _hasn't explained the God damn notebook yet._ He really needs to get on that and _soon._

 

He opens his mouth and closes it, looking down at his hands. His gaze flicks around the room and something catches his eyes, and he looks over to Michael. “Wanna go stargazing?”

 

Michael turns off his phone and looks up at him. That small smile that Jake has gotten used to shows up on his face and he nods. Dragging a blanket outside and spreading it out, five minutes later they lay in Jake's backyard and stare up at the sky. They're so lucky, seeing as how there's maybe two stars out. Between them is Michael's phone. He puts on Spotify and clicks play on a playlist that he has cleverly titled “Bops”.

 

Thinking about it now, the first indication that something is going to go wrong is the fact that an ad plays.

 

The second indication is that two stars turns into one, then none.

 

The third is that Michael's phone dies.

 

The forth is that the Jake thinks he feels something hit his forehead.

 

The impact comes when suddenly, it starts raining. It doesn't go from a slight drizzle that lasts just long enough for Michael and Jake to stand up and drag the blanket inside and them inside safe and only moderately damp, oh no. No, it starts as an intense, every man for himself pour of rain that has both of them leaping to their feet to run inside, rest in peace to the blanket. They weren't even _that_ far away from the back door, but by the time they make it inside, they're soaked to the bone, both of them already shivering.

 

“Fuckin’ New Jersey,” Jake mutters under his breath, causing Michael to sigh and nod along.

 

“So much for stargazing.” Michael looks out the window at the sad, sad blanket. “I'm sorry about the blanket, I would’ve taken it in with me-”  
  
“Hey, hey, no worries,” Jake reassures, putting a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Michael looks at the hand then back up to him, eyes wide behind his glasses. Jake’s glad that there are still droplets on the glasses distorting Michael’s vision. The moment would’ve felt too intense otherwise. “It’s a _Cars 2_ blanket. We would’ve had to part ways eventually.” Jake removes his hand and wipes a rain droplet off his cheek as it dramatically rolls down. When he speaks, his voice is fake choked up. “Salutations, soldier.”  
  
Michael giggles at that and takes off his glasses, wiping them on one of the only dry spots on his shirt. “I’m gonna go get changed. I suggest you do the same. Wouldn’t want to catch a cold, now would you?”  
  
Jake takes his suggestion and changes into dry pajamas. He’s toweling his hair off in the living room when Michael enters, wet hair pushed back in some slicked back look, and honestly, he looks ridiculous. Curse Jake and his stupid brain for taking that ridiculous and turning it into “ridiculously cute”. Goddamn feelings.  
  
Michael sits down beside him on the couch. And, just like that, it’s awkward again. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake can see Michael open his mouth like he’s going to say something before he closes his mouth again and looks down to his lap. His hands grip the cushion underneath him hard enough that his knuckles go white. Jake feels an unpleasant knot grow in his chest, knocking into his heart, making the beats painful. He speaks before the feeling can overwhelm him.  
  
“Wanna go stargazing?” It comes out softer than intended, the words quiet and maybe hopeful. Michael looks up to him, some emotion that Jake can’t place in his eyes. Outside, there’s a flash of light and a violent crackle of thunder. Michael looks out the window over Jake’s shoulder, then back to Jake.  
  
“Where?” His voice is just as soft if not softer.  
  
“Right here.” Jake points to the living room floor. He tilts his chin up to look at the ceiling. He points at the ceiling. It has cracks, stains, streaky paint marks, and more. “And we’ll gaze at the stars.”  
  
When he looks back down to Michael, Michael’s just… staring at him. Jake’s mouth closes into a hopeful smile until Michael nods, sliding off the couch and laying down on the floor. Jake lays down beside him, shoulder to shoulder, a few inches of space between them.  
  
They just… gaze. Eyes run over the markings on the imperfect ceiling, and it’s quiet except for rain and thunder until the silence is broken by Jake.  
  
“I feel like I should play some like… ASMR nighttime noises.”  
  
Michael snorts when he laughs. It makes Jake laugh. “ _ASMR nighttime noises?”_  
  
“We aren’t immersed in the stargazing experience, Michael.”  
  
“So that makes you suggest ASMR?”  


“Duh. We need some fake crickets and wind.”  
  
“The rain hitting the roof is ASMR in itself, wouldn’t you say?”  
  
The conversation continues like this for a bit, hopping from topic to topic and just flowing easily. At one point, Michael points along a large crack and calls it the “Big Ripper”. Jake absolutely loses it, laughing harder than he has all night while simultaneously calling Michael a nerd and halfheartedly shoving at his shoulder. It quiets down again soon, although this is a comfortable silence. Still, Jake breaks it.  
  
“The notebook, I… I never meant to hurt you with that.” Jake’s looking up to the ceiling, but in his peripheral vision, he can see that Michael has turned his face toward him and is now looking at him. “I never… well, at first, I thought of you as some sort of project, and I regret that now. You’re not just a project, a, a thing to be _won_ , you’re a person, and at the beginning, I kept telling myself that I wanted to be your friend to prove to myself that I could win you over and get you to like me and that mentality was _shitty._ ”  
  
Now he looks over at Michael. Their faces are close. Michael is staring wide eyed as usual and there aren’t any rain droplets to cut through his vision and distort it. The moment is intense as hell.  
  
“I could never think of you like that now. I think of that Jake from months back and I wonder ‘what is he thinking, what does he think of me now?’ I wonder how he would feel knowing that you’ve become one of the most important people in my life while he’s stuck thinking that you’re just some fucking prize to be won.”  
  
Michael’s face flushes to a light pink. Jake’s sure that he is slowly becoming redder and redder as he talks.  
  
“The notebook was to help me track my progress at first, to tell me how far I was getting with you, what our, uh… _status_ was, whether we were acquaintances, friends, whatever. Then, as I started wanting to genuinely be your friend, it changed into this mess of feelings I have, things I’ve noticed about you, ways to get closer to you and… and make you _happy._ ”

Michael takes Jake’s hand between them. Jake intertwines their fingers and squeezes Michael’s hand. Michael squeezes back, although it’s weaker, and when Jake looks over to his face again, he sees that he’s now edging into the red territory with his blush, and his lower lip looks to be trembling.  
  
“Michael, I… the notebook, it… it was never harmful. Never. That… what I last wrote, it wasn’t about you, it wasn’t about some prank, it was something I needed to tell you about me, something that I, something that… well, you know.”  
  
It’s quiet except for the rain. Thunder crackles.  
  
“No, I… I don’t know. Wh-what is it?” Michael’s voice is practically a whisper. Jake feels silly for being this affected, for feeling so under pressure with this crush of his, but it’s a serious thing to him. He squeezes Michael’s hand and looks down at their hands. He even has to close his eyes before he’s able to force the words past his lips.  
  
“That I like you.” It feels like a weight has been lifted, like he can breathe again. He looks up to Michael and sees how wide his eyes are blow, face bright red. Gaze flicking between both of his eyes, Jake continue, voice softer. “I really like you, Michael. Take that as you will.”  
  
Silence. Rain. Thunder. Jake closes his eyes and tries to not let his heart hurt. A shaky breath is taken to his side and he opens his eyes just slightly, looking at Michael. “I… I like you too. Take that as you will too, me, me saying that.”  
  
Jake grins at him and slowly but surely, Michael grins back. Things may not be perfect yet, things will never be perfect, but that’s okay. At the end of the day, they’ve got each other, and that’s what really matters.  
  
And outside, the rain slowly starts to clear, making the way for a clear sky full of twinkling stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i semi consistently wrote and updated chapters? that was a groovy time

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @ strawnberrylemonade


End file.
